Site Change
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

I’m working on the site. Moving it to squarespace but there will likely be a period of time where everything is jacked up.

Posted in New News | Edit | No Comments »
personal training
Monday, March 16th, 2009

Just in case you don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or see me day to day you might be interested to know I just attended 32 hours of Personal Trainer training. I should be getting the results back in march sometime. If I passed the written test (i know I passed the practical no problem) then I will be a registered AFAA personal fitness trainer. Which you know, is cool :)

The class was really good. The teacher Niko was really good. Knew his stuff and knew how to teach it to the class. There was a ton of information and he really did a good job getting it out in a way we could absorb.

The only problem I had was memorizing several of the muscle names. I still dont know the proper name for your calf muscles or their opposing muscles (the ones over your shin). Oh well, I’m still sure I passed the written even though I missed a few questions here and there.

Oh, if you don’t have an iphone or ipod touch you wont care, but if you are trying to find an easy way to track your food and exersize for free download the Lose It application. It works!


Xmas Photos
Thursday, January 15th, 2009

Just wanted to post up some pics from our xmas day outing. I’ll edit this and add some details later, but suffice it to say we had lots of fun, ate tons of food, and ensured the holiday spirit was enjoyed to its fullest.

Posted in New News | Edit | No Comments »
Long time no Update
Thursday, January 8th, 2009

Mostly because of Fallout 3.

This game has captivated me in a way that games havn’t done since I was 11 or 12. The rich atmposphere, small storytelling details, seemingly random events and locations, emergent interaction, and fun all shine throgh with a loving polish from the creators that gives me a big warm fuzzy.

I started the game with a little bit of apprehension. I did not enjoy Oblivion, the last game from the company, because it simply failed to engage me. The story didnt interest me, the location bored me, and the game mechanics really did nothing to keep me enteretained. I am pleased to say that Fallout 3 did not have this effect on me at all.

I chose to play this game in a very particular way. As an open world roleplaying game, you get to make lots of choices, and tackle the main story at your leisure. I had also heard that there was way more content in the game than the main quest would expose you to. You would evidently have to go out and seak fun. I didnt think that just blasting through the game would be fun, and I really didnt want to just wander around aimlessly. What I chose to do instead was take the main quest, and work towards it purposefully. However, any time something shiny, cool, wierd, or out of place crossed my path, I would stear straight for it. I really think I made the best choice here and have gotten more out of the game than i would have any other way. To give people who have played the game an idea of what this did, I hit the level cap (level 20 if you didnt know) before I had gotten to vault 112. The last perk I took was the explorer. I plan on going to all of the locations in the game and seeing what crazy things are happening.

I really reccomend this game, and encourage you to play it like I have. The setting, stories, characters, and stuff in the game are so much fun and so entertaining that speeding by it, or trudging through it mechanicly, are fast ways to burn out on it.

In other news, there is no news. Simple. I hope to have pics of our christmas schenanigans up soon. Just need to stop being lazy.


last day in germany
Friday, November 21st, 2008

Well, I suppose tomorrow is the last day, but I’ll be doing nothing but going to the airport from the house first thing in the morning. Its been a long trip, maybe a little too long from Yoshiko, but I’m through it and ready to see her again. I have had this feeling of loss building since the first few days here and it has now gotten to the point where I want to do nothing else but be back with Yoshiko.

Oh, if you didnt already know Alison went and had her baby on a day other than my birthday. I know right? How inconsiderate! I saw the pictures though and the little guy is super cute. I hope someday Yoshiko and I have similar news to share with everyone.

Posted in Germany Trip | Edit | No Comments »
hamburg
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

I’m back from a weekend of excesses in Hamburg :) Two of Crystal’s old boyfriends (don’t ask me, I just go with the flow) Freddy and Gerrit and I stayed at Gerrit’s place in Downtown Hamburg. Its a pretty interesting city with lots to do. We managed to enjoy ourselves quite a bit.

Freddy drove him and I down to Gerrit’s Friday night, and once we found the place we kicked back a bottle of Sake and a bottle of Teacher’s. This of course was just a warm up for the 2 for 1 party at a club on the Reeperbahn. This place is essentially the party center of Hamburg, with all kinds of fun and excitement to be had. We contented ourselves with hanging out in a rock&roll place that was having a 2 for 1 drink sale all night. Somehow we made it home at 6AM (despite Gerrit’s inability to find his own house) and settled in for a nice sleep.

Of course I can’t sleep much past 10 and caught only a few hours. The other two were able to slumber until 1 or so, lucky guys. We had a huge breakfast and unfortunately had to say goodbye to freddy for the weekend because he had to come back up to Bremen.

Gerrit and I decided to do some site seeing Saturday. Unfortunately the weather made taking pictures difficult but we did manage to go into Michael’s Church which was pretty neat. It has the largest working tower clock in Germany and bizarrely had a damned bar and whatnot inside. It was pretty cool, I think it was there for the people filming something or other that night. I grabbed some pics and we made our way to eat.

As we were both ravenous from all the walking around we did last night and this day we decided on steak for dinner. The Block House obliged us with a delicious piece of beef complete with garlic bread, baked potatoe, and beer.

Dinner ended early with both of us feeling stuffed and satisfied. We then proceeded to the Irish Pub near Gerrits house. It was still early in the evening, around 7 or so, but the pub was pretty crowded. They were having a music performance later in the evening but people came in to grab some food early and have a pint and secure their seats. The lady behind the bar let us know that if we wanted, there was another bar downstairs and we could have a drink there if we liked until the show started. This sounded great and we followed her down into the basement.

This is where we met the gold miner.

We descended the stairs and were looking at the restrooms for the place rather confused. The waitress however did a 180 under the stairs and waved us forward between a tiny hallway that was hidden under the stairs, with no signs or other indications that the place existed. Gerrit and I exchanged a look but followed her anyhow (Gerrit is 2 meters 4 cm, so its not like we were going to get jumped) The hall twisted once or twice and sure enough, there was another bar! They hadn’t officially opened but the waitress assured us that the bartender was there and would serve us.

So we were introduced to our friendly bartender, had a few (ok, quite a few) pints of Guiness and found out that our host was an honest to god Gold Miner. He travels every year to the Yukon (no, I’m not making this stuff up) and digs holes in the ground for Gold. Awesome. We told some jokes, had some laughs, and soon enough the guy providing entertainment for the night joined us for a drink as well. We followed him up and enjoyed a few hours of traditional Irish songs and some other easy going rock and roll covers. It was a ton of fun and if I’m back in Hamburg I’ll have to stop by again for sure.

We ended Saturday with a walk around town some more and called it a night relatively early.

Sunday started at a more normal hour and we were quick to head out into town to see some sights. Unfortunately NOTHING in Hamburg is open on Sunday. Well, some things, like restaurants, cafe’s, and things like that but nothing else. Even things that were open on Sunday usually were closed “this” sunday because of the German equivalent of Veteran’s day. But we made the most of it and did end up going to the fest in Hamburg called “The DOM” (it sounds like dome) We had some hot spiced wine and food and walked around for a while enjoying some traditional fest foods. There were a surprising number of people out considering how bad the weather was.

Our night finished off with a nice grand finale when we went to see Alter Bridge. Gerrit had gotten us tickets earlier in the week. They put on a pretty good show. I had never heard any of their stuff before, as I really dont listen to the radio, but it was pretty good. They had some good heavy type songs which I really liked. The crowd was sort of tame but the band did a good job getting the energy in the place up as high as they could.

I went straight from the show to the train station, then spent all night relating the stories from the trip to mom until 4 in the morning. Again though I woke up today at 1030 and couldn’t sleep any more. Its 8 at night now and I’m not tired yet. I either don’t need as much sleep as I used to, or this trip is going to catch up with me all at once. We’ll see.

Until then boys and girls its officially 4 days, 6 hours, and 36 minutes until I’m back in Japan. I need a vacation from my vacation it seems. I really miss Yoshiko.

Posted in Germany Trip | Edit | No Comments »
My Birthday
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

its a bit belated to write about it, but better late then never yeah? Plus I wanted to make sure everyone had time to read the other stuff. You are all reading every word I write yes? If not then I’m talking to no one, which is talking to oneself, which is crazy.

Anyhow the birthday was easily one celebrated to excess and it went like this...

For the early part of the day Mom and I prepared the various foods and dishes that were to be eaten at what germans love to refer to as “Kafee und Kuchen” which translates to “Get together and talk alot while drinking and eating, possibly coffee and cake”. Now I don’t drink coffee but I do love a cake. In fact I love this cake, made by Sonja, who is 6 months pregnant but still managed to keep up with us by the way. Anyhow, the cake!

20081105_16NN.JPG

Several people came over and i got to see Wolfgang’s (Mom’s ex) and Tonja’s (who I’ve known since i was 7) new baby! She was really cute and looks ALOT like wolfgang.

20081105_15NN.JPG

Guests came and went, food and drink were drank, and so the night continued. Tonja and I helped ourselves to 3 bottles of Proseco (champagne) and were feeling pretty good. We also killed a bottle of Sochu that I mixed sparingly with fresh orange juiced. Wolfgang definately liked the sochu, as I think he had about half the bottle. I didnt mix them in front of people, so they had no idea how much alchohol was in one tall glass. Mystery revealed: it was a ton.

From the house we went to the 2 Raum Lounge (2 Room Lounge if you couldn’t figure it on your own) which had a VIP area set up for us. The place was having a big party on the same day and we essentially tacked our party on to that party and had ourselves quite a time. Grey Goose, Bacardi Raz, and whatever you wanted to go with it were the order of the day and we had a blast. The party itself was so packed you had to push your way through, but we had an area with couches and whatnot separate behind a red velvet rope (no joke) where only our guests and other VIP personnel were allowed. We had some Rooster basketball players (local tier 2 team) show up, and some other people my mom knew. All in all it was a good time. The music could have been better I suppose but beggars can’t be choosers.

Anyhow we were there from 11 something to 6 AM and everyone was good and toasted. I had slowed down my drinking to a crawl around 4 though so I could see it through to the end of the night. Fortunately the steady supply of red bull kept me awake and by 7 i was pretty much the only semi sober person in Bremen (except for Sonja, who was pregnant :) )

Our morning ended up with taxis home from another club called Woody’s (rock n roll club, pretty cool even at 6AM) and I went straight to bed, only to wake up at the sad hour of 1030 AM... the same damned morning. I showered, ate, and spent the rest of the day lounging about letting my stomach ease its way through the day. Apparently I was not built to drink so much red bull and my gut let me know it by doing summersaults all day. I almost would have preffered a traditional hangover. Almost.

So that was the party. I have pics from Mom’s house but none from the club. I was hessitant to bring my camera into the place. No one likes to be photographed having “that” good of a time :)

Posted in Germany Trip | Edit | No Comments »
More premier Pictures
Sunday, November 9th, 2008

20081105_744.JPG

here are the rest of the pictures from the Bond Premier. They are a little out of order because of the way the resizing program i have works but its what I have up for now. As you can see there was a ton of models and a ton of work to do.

20081105_450.JPG

If anyone wants the full size version of any particular picture please let me know the exact number of the picture (you can see this my leaving the mouse over the thumbnail) and I will email it to you. Each origional picture is very large (over 4 megabytes) so please keep your requests to the ones you “really” want. If you want many, or all, of the pictures you will need to get them via disk of some sort. That can be worked out as well but it may have cost for shipping/media etc. Let me know though.

Posted in Germany Trip, Pictures | Edit | No Comments »
pics from the bond premier.
Friday, November 7th, 2008

here are the pictures of mom and her friends doing the makeup of the bond premier. if you need larger prints of anything please give me the picture number.

game time
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

i went to the Bremen VS Leverkusen game last night. Here is the highlight reel from the interwebs...

unfortunately bremen lost 2-0


For the D&D crew...
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

Check ou the link on the left. Or, if you like, go directly to dnd.brandonbergeron.com

Let me know if you need anything or if you would like to see a change. Site will never be pretty though, just so you know :)

Posted in D&D | Edit | No Comments »
Leave the jetplane on
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

Listening to the Flobots. They are good. You should listen too. You can use Last FM to check them out.

I’ll be going to Germany to visit my mom from October 21st to November 21st. This is part of my “spend as much leave as possible so I dont lose it this year” plan. I carried over 58 hours past my limit last year. They told me that wouldnt be happening again :) I’m excited to see mom. If anyone is around let me know!

Oh, this is for Steffan, Heather, Joe, and Jerad... Full site to come as soon as I can get a copy of Dreamweaver that works.

Well I’m out to go to autobacs to check on some GPS units for Yoshiko and to file my back pay claim :) Free money here I come!


come on electric car!
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

$3.85 and rising. What... the... hell.

This rain needs to let up so I can ride my bike more. Stupid car and its dinosaur burning engine.

I wonder what gets better mialage, brontasaurus or stegasaurus. Hm...


CK gets communionized
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

I’m not sure if thats the right verbage, but it should be :)

Here are some picks from the event. If anyone can rock a solid white tux, its my lil bro. Man is that suit pimp.
CK communion
Loads more pics on his page.

Posted in Family News | Edit | No Comments »
red rings, how they pain me
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

never mind being sick. I can live with sick. But my xbox 360 is now dead. I knew it was comming. It was a launch edition xbox. Most of these things have died out 6 months ago or earlier. It was a small source of pride that my box had lasted so long. But now the three lights are flashing from their ring and I have no choice but to box the poor thing up and send it back to microsoft. I’m trying to get some guys to do a 21 gun salute, but I only have 6 nerf guns in the office....

I sold my woodsball paintball gun and turned the money into a PS3. I have no games for it, and I dont plan on getting any. What I do have is Planet Earth on bluray. Let me tell you something, high definition television is AMAZING. Everyone owes it to themselves to spend their economic stimulous check on one. Or two! And if you are going to buy a bluray player, do get the PS3. It is the same price, or cheaper, then most bluray players, and it is easily the best, most full featured player on the market. The fact that it doubles as a games machine, internet browser, Folding@home machine, and lots of other stuff is just a bonus. It will even upscale (translation: Increase resolution/prettyness) your regular DVD movies.

One thing I’m going to do now is renew my netflix subscription. BluRay movies are expensive compared to DVDs, but netflix doesnt care one way or another what you have. They send you bluray when they have it, regular DVD when they dont, and there is no price difference to me. Very cool! I’m bummed that I can’t use their streaming service in Japan though. The XBox marketplace does the same thing to me. They go “Look at all our awesome content!” and I get excited and ready to buy said content, then “Oh, sorry, its not for you... jerk”.

Well, time to get back to work. We have 6 summer staff that need to given things to do, and I’m the kind of guy who loves to give :)

oh, I got shot in the nipple playing paintball yesterday. Gods did it hurt! Note to self, dont get shot in nipple anymore.

Posted in Rants, Rec News | Edit | No Comments »
stupid gas
Saturday, May 24th, 2008

its up to 3.63... what... the... hell...

Posted in Rants | Edit | No Comments »
schwin!
Monday, May 5th, 2008

I rode my new bike back a forth to work. Its a road bike. Its a schwin. The ride “to” work is rather easy. A few gradual hills and not much to worry about. The ride home SUCKS. The hills are killer and it takes two to three times as long depending on how desperate you want to get on the uphill cranking. Its all good though, I need the exercise, and riding this bike is going to save me about $100 a month in car juice (AKA gas) which is $3.20 a gallon and complete bullshit. Pluss, as I age, I find myself caring more about my personal waste. And I’m a fat bastard and could stand to lose about 20 lbs.

So I look forward to getting a little cardio every day, showing up to work drenched in sweat, and showing up at home in the same condition. All until the bitter winter where temperatures range from icy cold to possible irreversible shrinkage cold. Then I’ll dust off the car keys and grow fat again until the next spring. Should be fun :)

oh, and Asahi Premium. Good stuff. I highly recommend it. Yoshiko even likes it.

Posted in Rec News, Work News | Edit | No Comments »
wow
Saturday, May 3rd, 2008

Grand Theft Auto IV is a damned fine game. Not because its mechanics are good, but because it is fun. It has characters that you love, hate, and love to hate. People act in ways that make sense, the world is a living breathing entity, and the music is fantastic. I never really liked the other GTA games, mostly because of the crap story and cartoonish characters.

This game feels right. As if there is a Liberty City and I am living the life of Niko Belic. I feel his sympathy for Dwayne. I love how he is good friends with a Rude Boy from the Bronx. His cousin is a retard, but we love him because Nico loves him as family. We are hurt by our girlfriends betrayal, begrudgingly thankfull she didnt turn us in, and pissed we didn’t see it comming, because the clues we were given were ignored in our effort to find a little romance in an otherwise romanceless world.

I’ve played the game for hours, but have only seen a fraction of the world. I’m excited by what comes next...


sumo pics!
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

Pics A B C D E F

Posted in Rec News | Edit | 1 Comment »
Sumo soon
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

Just a quick word to say that I will be posting pics and vids of Yoshiko and my trip to the Sumo tournament! It was really cool and fun to watch. The building is smack in the middle of Tokyo. I was supprised at how much fun people had, and how much personality each of the wrestlers displayed. There is a cool mix of tradition and showmanship that blends to bring a certain electricity in the air. You have to be there to feel it though, watching it on TV really makes it seem boring. The live event is awesome though. If you ever get the chance to see a match I reccomend it.

Stay tuned...


sumo pics!
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

Pics A B C D E F

Posted in Rec News | Edit | 1 Comment »
Sumo soon
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

Just a quick word to say that I will be posting pics and vids of Yoshiko and my trip to the Sumo tournament! It was really cool and fun to watch. The building is smack in the middle of Tokyo. I was supprised at how much fun people had, and how much personality each of the wrestlers displayed. There is a cool mix of tradition and showmanship that blends to bring a certain electricity in the air. You have to be there to feel it though, watching it on TV really makes it seem boring. The live event is awesome though. If you ever get the chance to see a match I reccomend it.

Stay tuned...


xbox live or steam
Tuesday, January 1st, 2008

If you are on XBox Live or Steam send me a friends request! I’m Skullmatrix on both. You can link to my gamercard directly from the left XBox Live link.

Right now I’m playing Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, and Team Fortress a lot online. I am also huge into rockband and guitar hero. If you want to get a game going or just chat (I can do video on Live) I’m game.

See you online!

Posted in Rec News | Edit | No Comments »
cousins and more
Tuesday, January 1st, 2008

It took me a little longer to get them set up and done than I would have liked (had to reacquire a copy of dreamweaver, a totally 100% legitimate one of course!) So now the pics are up and you can check them out.

Everyone is almost unrecognizable from how I last remember them.

Gone is the baby fat and look of kids. Sheena, Jacob, Saun, and Jeremy all look like grownups, and its honestly a bit frightening.

Not them, but the fact that it has been so long since I have seen any of them.

Who in my family might I pass in the street every day and not even notice? I havn’t seen my own mother in almost 8 years. And Sheena has a baby.

I don’t for a second regret living where I do. But I wish I had more of the means (read... greens) to visit everyone once in a while. Or maybe everyone can come visit me! Thats it Brandon... take the lazy way out.

Seriously though I want to come see everyone possibly this year. The plan I have involves a plane ticket with at least three stops, one in Colorado, one in Massachusetts, and one in Germany. I don’t know what it will cost but I am saving for it. I don’t know either if Yoshiko will be able to make all/some of the trip. It depends on her work schedule. If she can come out for part it will likely be to Mass since thats the large part of the family she hasn’t seen. Even so she wouldn’t be able to stay for long.

So, plans are in motion. Saving accounts are growing. I just hope nothing comes up this year to put a stop to it. Last year I had similar ambitions but I had to buy a new car :(


Happy Holidays
Wednesday, December 26th, 2007

Im typing this at lunch from my iPod so please excuse any spelling strangeness. Thanks to everyone who sent emails and called and to everyone who sent presents. Yoshiko and I really enjoyed the clothes and ornaments and other stuff. We wish everyone a merry Xmas and a happy new year!

Not slot of new things going on. Recently I ran a 14 team dodgeball tournament for the national junior honor society at the middle school. It was hectic, taking 3 plus hours to finish. Highlights included some amazing one on one shots, great sportsmanship, and a willingness to go put and just have fun and not try to be super cool. Mo one looks cool when they get smashed with a dodgeball in the face.

I started a savings account for the first time ever and to touch the money at all I have to go to the bank. Hopefully this is enough to keep me from dipping into the account. The plan is to save a bunch of cash for half a year or so and then put that into a higher interest bearing account. Not sure what exactly yet but I’m sure the bank can recommend something.

Speaking of saving money I’m trying to save up for a new PC. Hopefully the price of the cards I want goes down between now and then. I need a new Motherboard, vidcard, and processor. My card is for years old and showing its age. Well lunch is over. Time to send and get back to work.

Oh, auntie darlene sent me a nice long email and a ton of pics. I’m working on getting those up and replying. Sorry its taking so long!

Posted in Family News, Rec News, Work News | Edit | No Comments »
New Phone
Wednesday, December 5th, 2007

I have a new phone, the Infobar 2, a poor name for a great phone.

Infobar 2

The things I like most about the phone are its slim size and fantastic display. Its really easy to use, the keylock feature works without being bothersome, and it has a really unique vibration mechanism that makes it impossible to miss a call when your phone is on silent. There are a few strange choices in layout that I will attribute to simple cultural differences that didn’t translate well from the Japanese layout, and I need to go to the phone company and sign up for their web service, which I had switched off with my other phones because they frankly sucked.

No luck so far on the baby front (to change the subject wildly :) Were still giving it our best effort though, so hopefully soon you’ll hear from me with good news.

Been playing lots of rock band. Its like guitar hero except you can sing, play guitar, and drum too! Were still waiting for our drum kit to come in, but we already have a Rock Band “Band” lined up. Still some debate on who is going to sing, but we’ll hopefully have it all worked out soon.

Oh, everyone should send us their xmas wishlists! Yoshiko has been going nuts. And we’ll need to confirm mailing addresses for some people as well. If you think that applies to you please let us have your address!


quick shout out...
Monday, November 5th, 2007

I wanted to say thank you to Oma for the Bday card and gift :) Its good to hear from you and hopefully in the next year or so Yoshiko and I will be crawling across the US to visit everyone. No promises as of yet, but were trying to do some traveling in the next year or so.

In other news I have interviewed for a new job, havnt heard back about it yet though. Its a step up and alot more responsibility, so we’ll see what happens.

The new Rock Band 3 game is in the mail on the way to my greedy metal loving mits. I’m super excited to use the new wireless guitar and play some of the AMAZINGLY bad assed songs on there. Metallica’s One anybody? Yes please.

Rock... and Roll.

Speaking of Metal, I just started watching Adult Swim’s Metalocalypse, and it is brilliant. Super over the top metal band meets super over the top crazy violent world with bizzarely biting humor in the strangest moments. Favorite character? Nathan Explosion. I wonder If I can change my middle name to explosion... that would be super rad. Brandon “Explosion” Bergeron.

Super rad....


sweating in Key west
Thursday, October 18th, 2007

Here in the southernmost point in the USA :) Going through training where we just sweat all the fluids out of our body. I even got a little sick yeah! All better now and i’m waiting for the web based training to start. Its been a fun trip so far and I’ll try to get someone to take pics and send them to me. With any luck I’ll have em up in a week or so.

[one hour later]... aaaand finished. Now I’m starving. Eugine (the guy I’m traveling with) got an upgrade to a convertible mustang. Its sweeeet! Oh oh, time to go. LATER !

tonight... party time!

Posted in Work News | Edit | No Comments »
Can’t touch this
Friday, October 12th, 2007

this is me posting from my new ipod touch. If you have been living in some prison with no internets the touch is an iphone without a phone. Its so damned great im having trouble keeping my inner nerd in check. I keep wanting to show people and scream “worship my marvel of tech!!!” but then i remember i still dont own a high def tv. I keep silent for now...
iTouch


nerf guns and soccer games
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
Well its been fun this month. I’ve gotten a nerf longshot and have modified it to shoot about 100 feet from its stock 25 feet. The thing is a monster :) I think every few weeks I’ll do something with it to keep myself busy and entertained. It should be alot of fun. This comming week I think a paint job is in order.

Nerf Longshot

I’ve been coaching the 5-6 year old and 13-15 year old teams this year. Its been a ton of fun so far and while our record isnt great everyone is having a blast and I am really enjoying coaching. We had about 2 hours of practice last night and Jeremy (the other coach and my coworker) and I played with them. Its been too long since I’ve done any activity for two hours straight that didnt involve buttons being pressed. I’m pleasantly sore today and tomorrow I’ll probably be a wreck.

Yoshiko and I are officially trying to have a baby. Its been something we didnt want to rush into too early and I’m glad we waited. We’ll see now how our luck is and hopefully not too far into the future I’ll have good news to share with everyone. Thats about when I’ll be hitting everyone up for baby stuff so stay tuned :)

Speaking of stuff my bday is in a few months and Yoshiko said she is going to get me an ipod touch. How cool is that eh? I always get bombarded with “what do you want for your birthday” requests and I usually dont have a solid answer. So this year hopefully I can get you all a nice list. Or maybe I’ll just post something I like from time to time on this site.

In work news, I’m going to Key West Florida for a training conference thing. I know, my life is very tough. I’ll be there from the 16th to the 19th. I’m going to see about getting a layover somewhere and take some leave. I’ll let everyone know how that goes.

Oh, it looks like im in another issue of action persuit games magazine (also known as APG) I’ll try and scan the page and post it up later.

Gotta get back to work. I have a personal conditioning and training class to run in a bit. Have to figure out what I’m going to be doing :)

Posted in Family News, Rec News, Work News | Edit | No Comments »
applied for a new job
Tuesday, September 4th, 2007

I applied for the Youth Sports director in Zama’s job the other day. Its a big step up if I get it but I’m not sure if I’ll be selected over the assistant director that works there now. I know I’m better for the job, but you know how places like to hire from within rather than from without. I’ll keep everyone up to date on how it goes.

The two big plusses from the job, besides the huge increase in sallary, is that I get to move closer to where Yoshiko and I want to live, and I would be able to start looking into buying a house. Not to mention being able to afford having a child and all the other things money allows you to do. I’m excited but trying to keep a level head about the whole thing. Yoshiko has been suprisingly cautious about the whole thing. Usually she is constantly nagging about all the details and making a long list of things she plans to do... the sort of thing that depresses her when the maybe turns out to be a no. It would be nice to finally have positive news to come home with that isnt imediately crapped on for not being something else.

The boss is out of the office on vacation for a while. Additionally the school age care director has moved on to greener grasses. This puts the office in an awkward place where only junior managers and plain old staff are working. We’ll see how long it takes the resident overimportant secretary to start trying to dominate the office like some kind of pathetic pet store hierarchy. Yeah, you can pretend to be the top of the pack, but your still stuck in a cage begging for food and attention like the rest of us. Well, the rest of us are more interested in getting our food rather than the attention.


how hot is it?
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007

Hot enough to burn clear through your will to function like a human and delve deep into the core of your person and light it on fire causing your mind to splinter into tiny molten fragments leaving you babling like a baby after one too many falls off the cradle.

Yeah, that hot.

Google says its 100* out now. I doubt that. Its more like 250 or so. I’m pretty sure if you set a pot of water out it would boil. We could have shabu shabu. In fact, im starving and that wouldnt be so bad.

Besides the heat I taught the first part of a CPR/First Aid course. Small group and it looks like they’ll do fine. I enjoy teaching more than I enjoy staring at excel sheets (what I’ve been doing since lunch) and I think next time I’ll volunteer to teach the whole course myself. We’ll see.

I’m still waiting on my Angel 1 to get back from warranty servicing. Its driving me nuts to wait. I’ve used the thing twice since I got it in November. Its like getting a solid gold can opener and having nothing but mac n cheese in the house to eat. Frustrating to the point of madness.

Heheh. Girl at work just called in and had her window smashed by some errant construction. This is like the 5th car accident (most not her fault like this one) since she has been working here, less than a year. I need to remember not to park next to her any more. I actually like the car I have now :P

Posted in Podcast, Work News | Edit | No Comments »
Feedburner!
Tuesday, August 14th, 2007

Added a feedburner link here so you can subscribe to the podcast with things like iTunes and lots of other popular podcast grabbers. Leave some feedback if you have listened to the show.

Posted in Podcast | Edit | No Comments »
oops
Monday, August 13th, 2007

fixed the link to the podcast in the other post

Posted in Podcast | Edit | No Comments »
4 Sale Paintball
Sunday, August 12th, 2007

HEY! Joe and I just made a new podcast and its sweet! Super sweet even? Check it out here. Oh, before you listen please please please don’t follow the links mentioned in the podcast at work. Also, children should not go to those sites ever, or listen to my swearing. OH, and I’m in APG magazine again. Neet. Yoshiko is going to send mom, dad, and Oma a copy but for the rest of you, you can check it out at the store and not bother buying it :) Or buy it, APG has neet stuff sometimes.

Give it a listen and leave some feedback :)

Posted in Podcast | Edit | 1 Comment »
two classes
Monday, August 6th, 2007

and two B grades. Cool :)

My car died. Yep, dead. Long story short it got so hot it stopped working (yes, I know what the problem was, no, it wasn’t worth fixing, yes its fun to drive a car till it dies) My new ride is definitely an upgrade though. New tires, full GPS package, tinted out, nice interior, decent stereo, good power. The only complaint I have for it so far is that the gas mileage is pretty bad. Oh, its a 96 with only 35,000 kilometers on it too, so its in great shape. Hasn’t been driven very much. Apparently it sat at a police impound for quite some time until it was auctioned off. Gotta love that :)

Well, time to go watch prison break with Yoshiko, just thought I would give a little update. Oh, and my feet are burnt :( Stupid sun and its rays.


final class
Thursday, July 26th, 2007

Biology and English are comming to a close today. I took my last english test tuesday and the last bio exam will be tonight. Wish me luck :)

Posted in School News | Edit | No Comments »
its judgement time
Tuesday, July 10th, 2007

Evals are due this month so I submitted my list of “stuff I’ve done” to the boss. Last year I sent in a crazy long list that included everything under the sun that I accomplished. Most of it didn’t even come close to making it into my eval so this time I did a much more condensed list. I’ve gotten a lot of certificates and have headed several successful programs and basically have made my bosses life easier and not harder. Hopefully I get a bigger raise then I did last time.

Random though... Alot should be a word. Seriously.

Started a D&D campaign yesterday. Its been a LONG time since I’ve DMed anything but it went OK for a first effort. I think I’ve figured out what kind of game the players are looking for and so I’ll tweak and twist what I’ve got planned for them. Hopefully soon we’ll get another player or two.

Time for Biology. Second exam (out of three?) wish me luck.

“SILENT ALARM ACTIVATED!”


chemistry is the only reason I am awake
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007

Whoever invented/discovered taurine and its magical ability to keep me alert and coherent deserves some sort of reward. If it wasn’t for this potent mix of chemicals and water I would be passed out on the floor of my English class dreaming of a forever long line of kids who move but never get anywhere. It was one of “those” days at work where I didn’t sit down from 10AM until I got to class at around 1645. Yes, that made me late.

Somehow someone somewhere really didn’t think this summer thing out. Apparently we wanted to hire 6 flex workers to work 9 hours a day, not incur any overtime, and do all their planning and prep stuff on the fly or on their own time. To say this makes them all cranky is a gross understatement. I don’t blame them either. I’m cranky too. I spent 5 hours of my day making sure everyone got a break. Of course I somehow am supposed to get the work I need done in this time frame. I don’t know if it is by design or by accident, all I know is it sucks and I am ready for it to be over. At least cheer camp will be better. Less kids means less councilors means less me having to pull relief duty.

Of course normally its not so bad because we have two of us doing it and it takes half as long. And the old adage of something not sucking so bad so long as someone else is suffering equally holds true here. I wonder what part of the psyche makes that kind of call. Simply by adding someone else to share in your misery it becomes less miserable. Heck, you can even enjoy it in a sense. Likely I’m not the only one who has wondered this and certainly not the smartest so if it isn’t common knowledge by now it probably hasn’t been figured out yet. Maybe I’ll write an English paper on it.

Speaking of writing, I’m apparently in the mood to do some writing. I’ve been writing material for a game lately. Today in class I cranked out a few handwritten pages. If you know me that will astound you as I hardly ever hand write anything. And now I’ve put quite a few words down in cyberspace without giving it much thought. I should really sit down and write a novel someday.

In other thoughts, I’m getting myself into more and more financial trouble. Not trouble as in “i owe alot of money to alot of people” but I really am having trouble not spending what I earn. Maybe if I set up an automatic payment to a savings account every paycheck or something something. I just need to fight the urge to get the things I want as soon as I have the means. I think that is the curse of being middle class. As soon as you can scrape together a few bucks you have a very strong desire to spend those bucks right away. You are so happy to have gotten ahead of the recurring bills that you celebrate and put yourself right back to the beginning. I guess that is why they say it takes money to make money. It is very tough though. It seems the more I earn the less I take home after paying the rent and all the other bills that keep coming in. I often spend the days before a paycheck or income milestone looking at an empty account. I don’t starve and I don’t miss payments. I don’t know if I’m doing well or really having a shit time of it.

One thing is for certain though. Its time for a new job. New money, new responsibilities. A new boss and coworkers. New things to work on, new places to shine. Three years have passed and my internal clock is hungry for a change. Its like a sprinter poised and ready to break out. Now I just need a race to set it lose on.

Posted in Rants, School News, Work News | Edit | No Comments »
class is over
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007

Not “over” as in done, but over as in for the night. I really think this class will be fun. Creative Writing is something I do out of instinct I suppose. (feel free to say otherwise in the comments) The only concern I have is not having the book. I’m trying to see if I can get by. Its not a math class, no problems to do, so I should be ok. And for biology I’m certain I wont need it.

Speaking of Biology I’m waiting now for that to start. Seems some people dont like the teacher though. Dont know why. He lectures in a consistent rythem, puts all the test info you need out there, has lots of relevant information about the topic, his timing for the class is perfect. His last slide finished minutes before class gets out. I guess he has been teaching a while here. Whatever the popular opinion I like him and enjoy the class.

Oh, if you want to buy me an HD tv please do. Dont worry, you dont have to ship it here, there is one close by that will do. I’ll take care of all the heavy lifting ;)

Got a new gamefly game in today. Lost Planet. Basicly a 3rd person shooter, in the snow. The game looks great and was fun when I played the demo. I’ll probably play it for a week and then return it. Game rentals are cool. I get to play stuff I would never buy but want to check out. They even have a pretty reasonable “buy it” feature where you can keep the game for a discounted price. Sometimes the discount isnt that much, but you can get some good deals.

Speaking of good deals, wired magazine is only $10 for a year subscription! I signed up for 2! I realized I’ve been buying magazines to read at lunch and whatnot when I dont feel like being plugged in. The typical mag is like $5 or more at the newstand though, where the subscription is WAY less. No longer will I be a sucker! Sign me up for a subscription!

Posted in Rec News, School News | Edit | No Comments »
so damned sore
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007

working out sucks :( my whole body feels like its been tenderized by a giant textured hammer. I had a great workout yesterday and when i got home I tried very hard to hide from the inevitable cardio with Billy. Of course no one could forget and it beat me into a pulp.

“pick your knees up!”

no, I will not.

Posted in Rec News | Edit | No Comments »
working out
Monday, June 11th, 2007

Today I start in earnest my workout schedule. The plan is to lift before noon Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I have a circuit planned out and some goals which I wont bore you with. Suffice to say I’m trying to increase my strenght some, my tone some, and change my fat / lean weight ratio for the better.

On the same days at night I’m going to be doing cardio workouts with Yoshiko at home. Right now were doing the “Fat Blasting Cardio” workout from the TaeBo guy. Its a pretty fun workout but we are a bit tired of the same DVD. Yoshiko is supposed to be getting a few new DVDs soon though. Should be fun.

I’ve been putting on a bit of lean weight here and there. Its really wierd watching my weight change. You I put on muscle and gain weight, then loose some fat and the weight goes down. So basicly even though it “looks” like I’m losing weight, I’m really staying right around 86-87 kilos. When I was in high school in germany I weighed 75 kilos. Going into basic I weighed 82 kilos. Oddly enough I’m in better shape now than when I came out of basic but weigh quite a bit more. Wierd.

Tomorrow I start my Creative Writing english class. I had a week of biology already and think I’ll do pretty good. It kind of depends I think on how the teacher makes the tests though. If he has alot of fill inthe blank questions I’m screwed. I can recognize the names and terms alot better than I can dream them up from the depths of memory. Of course it would be better maybe if I had the book to look at. At 115 greenbacks though I don’t think that will happen any time soon. I’m sure I’ll pass without it though. English shouldnt be any different unless the teacher gives lots of reading assignments out of the book. Hope not.

Back to work now. My 5 minute blogging break is up I guess. I have nothing really going on today except for planning out the Dodgeball end of season party with the bowling alley and talking to the fitness people about our PCT program. Fun stuff.

Posted in Rec News, School News, Work News | Edit | No Comments »
Guitar Hero 2
Tuesday, June 5th, 2007

It rocks your socks off!

For those of you who don’t like Rock and Roll, tiny plastic gibson guitars, or anything Awesome you can stop reading now. For the rest of you that somehow are not playing this amazing game let me fill you in.

First of all, for a killer review of the game by people who write for a living check out 1up.com’s review. For those of you too lazy to follow the link, here is the gist.

“Living out air-guitar fantasies delivers a certain euphoria of accomplishment previously reserved for accomplished musicians”

I’ve been playing the game for a few months now and love every second of the time I spend playing. This is not just a game for “gamers” either. A co-worker of mine who is the Adult Fitness coordinator, a mom, bodybuilder, and everything besides someone who plays games, loves it. The magic is in the music. If you like rock and roll of any kind there is a song here that will have you hooked. You hear the first few opening riffs or chords and your brain switches in to Rock God mode. For you long time rockers tracks from Aerosmith or Guns and Roses will do it for you. I love the stuff from Reverend Horton Heat, Rancid, and the Toadies. For a complete track list check here.
The gameplay is pretty simple. You get a package that comes with the game, guitar, and some stickers and whatnot. Pop the disk in, strap on your axe, and get ready to rock! After naming your band you’ll get a set list with some songs. I reccomend starting with Nirvanas “Heart Shaped Box” its got some cool “rocking out” parts, but otherwise is slow enough to learn the controls. The guitar is a cool gibson xplorer miniturization with 5 colored “fret” buttons and a strummer bar instead of strings. There is even a whammy bar! The bar is really funny because all it does is make you feel more “awesome” when your playing songs. Sure it gives you a few extra points but really its just there to complete the rock experience.

When you start a song a row of colored buttons will start marching down the screen like speed bumps on a road. When the buttons get to the strum line, hold down the same colored button on the guitar, and whack the strummer. TADA! You just played a note!

The whole experience works flawlessley to provide you with the illusion that you are rocking out on the guitar. I’ve never played a game that made me feel so damned cool and have this much fun at the same time. Tack on to this the fact that I failed several times to play a “real” guitar and the experience is even more rewarding. In fact I’m thinking of giving the real guitar another chance after this.

So yeah, if you have a PS2 or an X Box 360 get this game and rock out! Heck, get a second controller and you can play base with a friend! How cool is that?

The only thing that is going to top this is the up and comming game “Rock Band” from MTV and the people who made Guitar Hero. The game will have guitars, drums, base, and vocals all in one package. Pluss, with MTVs money and connections you’ll have a crapton of bands to choose from. I’ll be getting it, if you are interested in playing in my “band” let me know!

In other news... I’m taking a navy fitness class. The class is sort of a “trainer light” class. It is not designed to make me a personal trainer, but give me the knowledge and practical experience needed to offer advice and develop my own workout plan. We also went over all the machines and whatnot. The class is fun, I take the test tomorrow, wish me luck!


t minus 5...4...3...2...1
Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

blastoff!

No reason for that. Just thought it would be fun. Know what else is fun? The ninja turtles. Quick question though, was that vanilla ice playing at the end credits. I hope so, because it would be great :)

I am the Dodgeball commissioner. How cool is that? I need to get a police badge or something to show people. “Pardon me mam, official dodgeball buisness...” I’m super excited about the up and comming season. Its gonna be a ton of fun watching the kids play. I have all kinds of crazy ideas for drills and tactics too. Hopefully a coach will let me tag along at practices.

Well, getting kicked out of the maryland lab. class comming in.

Posted in Work News | Edit | No Comments »
psychout
Wednesday, May 9th, 2007

Been taking child psychology for a while now. Something interesting happened about halfway through though. Our professor, for unknown and mysterious reasons, had to withdraw from the class... on test day! So we have a new teacher now and she is cool but its odd having to learn a new teacher. I had the other guy pretty well figured out and knew what he was expecting. It seems a bit of a hassle now to do all that brain work again to please the new teacher.

I’ll be fine though for sure. We did group presentations the other day and my presentation was well received. Several commented that it was the best so far and that made me feel pretty good. Tonight is the first test (finally) and I should do rather well. I’m guessing between 82 and 94 percent. Depends on how many crazy psychologists I have to remember names for. Apparently that sort of thing is just as important as remembering the key concepts and ideas presented. Memorization, helping stupid people look smart since the dawn of testing.

I’ve spoken to quite a few old friends recently. I was pleasantly surprised to hear from Libra. She was someone I knew in Hawaii that I had what one might call the “hots” for. I also heard from my buddy rick who is doing good, and my buddy D who is decidedly not. I’m a little worried about D. Hope things pick up for him soon. He is such a great guy, needs to stop going after “hot chicks” and find someone who isn’t embedded with crazy sauce.

Speaking of doing well or not, my coworker and friend Jeremy picked up his old supervisors job and is now a full blown GS employee with benefits and pay. I’m really happy for him (truly) but I can’t help but have nagging jealous thoughts. Its nothing against Jeremy, he worked hard for the job and is the best person for it and certainly most deserving. I guess having someone who is doing the job I had, and having the job of someone who were both GS employees, making 1.5 or 2 times what I did, and have/had housing allowances that dwarf my paycheck is a little infuriating. And now that someone I consider my peer is making one and a half times what I do for simply being labeled under a different pay system... I guess you can say the system is doing a real good job of giving me the finger and giggling about it the whole time. Well, no matter. I’ll keep working hard and keeping my eyes open for a job that fits me and my goals and I’ll get it.

Yoshiko and I started working out to a Tai Bo DVD. Billy Blanks Fat Blasting Cardio! Let me tell you, a month of this and I’ll drop 10 pounds EASY. The DVD is an hour of high cardio aerobics that turned me to a puddle of sweat and goo. Yoshiko made it through 50 minutes of the hour before collapsing in a heap begging for water. I really expected her to do maybe 30 minutes so I was really impressed. We both need some weight loss and toning. Its summer time soon after all.

Not that I go to the beach or anything :)


very cool vid on YouTube
Monday, April 2nd, 2007

This was posted on the Augsburg American yahoo group.

Dad will get a kick out of that :) I would embed the video, but apparently this blogging software is not “hip” to the youtube standard...


site maintenance
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

If you noticed the site down for a little while you can see now that it is back up. At the same time the site was down though my email was down so if you sent anything to me in the last few weeks please resend it.

No time to write. My “to do” list at work is several sticky notes long.

BYE!

Posted in Site News | Edit | No Comments »
its morphin time!
Monday, March 19th, 2007

OMG! My sister is dating the red Ranger!
How crazy is that! Now, when I say the red ranger, I specificly mean the red stunt guy from the first movie. I know... cool, but somehow tainted...

Posted in Family News | Edit | 2 Comments »
presto its pesto
Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

For dinner I warmed up a delicious bowl of Pesto Tortellini courtesy of the freezer. Now that I’m all warm and sated I’ll share my thoughts today with everyone.
Thought one, I could really use a new set of ear buds. The ones I have now have no “oomph” to them at all and music just isn’t music without the “oomph”. I’m going to probably start reading reviews for the “lower middle end” buds that have been showing up all over the place. I dig the new silicone fittings. Looks comphy.

Yoshiko and I are looking to buy a house. Fun fact, the average Japanese home loan is a whopping 2% on average. Nice. Right now were looking around casually until we hear back from the bank on whether or not were approved, and if so for how much. Nail biting stuff I know.

I’ll be running a youth paintball clinic and tournament in May. It will be interesting and fun to say the least and a good chance to expose the field to more people. There are not nearly enough people playing around here. If were ever going to get a competitive team going again we’ll need all the people we can get to play with AND against.

Watching some good TV lately. Not on the TV, but downloaded episodes. If you haven’t already, check out LOST, HEROES, ROME, and the new Battlestar Galactica. I am really loving the TV renaissance that is going on right now. Lost had me hooked from episode one with its general “what the hell” vibe. Heroes is something new I started watching and I love every episode. Superheroes for real people. Rome I don’t really know if I “love” yet, but it is certainly entertaining. Lots of fighting, intrigue, steamy sex scenes, and great writing. My favorite characters are the two unfortunate/fortunate guys from the 13th legion. Each scene with them is classic. Battlestar Galactica is a show that makes the Geek in me giggle like a school girl and wish I was a space fighter pilot. The story is incredibly dark and heavy at times, but it oozes sci fi out of every pore. I’m waiting for season 3 to finish so i can stay up for two days straight watching it in one shot.

Thats enough from me for today i think. Just thought I would get some words down.

Good Hunting!


best viewed in Firefox
Monday, February 26th, 2007

If you use a PC to browse the internet for more than 10 minutes a day you should be using Firefox. Notice I said “should” and not “might want to” use. I make the strong distinction because I am tired of fixing other peoples computer problems. These problems are usually the result of surfing into places best left unsurfed, or clicking on links from spam emails. Now I know people will never stop surfing porn and crack sites, and I know people stop using their brains when they get new emails, so instead of fixing the root of the problem I offer a simple solution.

Switch to firefox now.

What is firefox? Glad you asked. Its a web browser just like internet explorer tries to be. In fact, I could probably switch out the two and you might never know the difference. But there is a difference and it starts with security. See, there are people who sit around in rooms across the globe who do nothing but make things better. Better for me, better for you. They write programs all day long trying to take the garbage that Microsoft and others give us and make it better. These people are part of the “open source” movement and their work often goes unsung and unnoticed. Basically open source is like a project anyone can work on at any time and in any way they like. The original code goes through so many hands and so many optimizations, tweaks, prods, and improvements that what you often end up with is a work of startling sophistication yet elegant implementation.

Now, what does this have to do with Firefox? Simple, it is safer, faster, more user friendly, feature rich, and better looking. Nerds from around the world hammered away at this little browser until they were left with something near perfection.

So why should you switch from your regular browser? If you are using Internet Explorer (if you are a windows user, this is probably you) then the security aspect is what you will be after. Computer not as fast as when you got it? Keep getting viruses? Do you have all kinds of crap on your computer that you didn’t install and don’t know how to uninstall it? Do you get random popup windows with advertisements, sometimes even when you arn’t browsing the net? Yep, these are all Internet Explorers fault, and I am willing to bet that once you remove all that crap and start fresh, you’ll never get any of it again using Firefox.

See, Internet Explorer is basically stupid. Its like a gullible kid answering the door. Whats that? You want to come in? Sure, why not. Hold on? You want to leave some stuff in our cellar? Why not! You can even put hat billboard in our lawn and infect us with chicken pox. I’m sure mom and dad wont mind!

Firefox on the other hand is like your own personal bouncer. “Hey boss, some guy wants to leave all kinds of crap in the lawn, you want to see him?” Nope, toss that freak back to the street. Firefox will either outright block or ask you before doing anything on your computer. It wont let software install without your knowledge, it wont let popups worm their way into your monitor, and best of all, its just as free as Internet Explorer. Heck, it even will import all of your bookmarks, cookies, and settings so you get a seamless transition from one to the other. I’m not even mentioning all the cool features Explorer has tried to steal (and bungled) like tabbed browsing and live bookmarks.
So please, for my sake, the sake of the poor computer guy you harass constantly, and the sake of anyone who has to use your machine, switch to Firefox. It is better.

In other news, cajun turkey breast makes for a tasty sandwich.

Posted in Rants | Edit | No Comments »
22″ viewsonic OMG!
Sunday, February 18th, 2007

Beauty has a new name and it is widescreen gaming. I’m not sure what giant brain figured it out but the widescreen aspect ratio is amazing. Filling the eyes with gorgious colors and phenominal clarity this twenty two inches of bright, glorious color is my new best friend. The digital world never looked so perfect.
Check it out!

Posted in Rec News | Edit | No Comments »
garlic joes kicked my ass
Thursday, February 15th, 2007

I feel gassy, full, and each heatbeat is felt in every part of my body. If I were to check my colesterol I would not be suprised at all to find it at zero. Last night we went to Yokohama for a glutonus Valentines day dinner and wow, did we ever eat. Yoshiko, another couple, and I ordered food for a group twice as large as ours and the only thing that didnt get eaten was a small tiny square of brownie from our dessert. We were all filled to bursting and then continued to eat. Pluss, this is garlic joes, so to say we had “some” garlic is like saying a stick of dynamite is “sorta” explosive. For instance, the garlic chicken I had was covered in minced garlic from top to bottom and then layered with dried garlic chips. This place actually had a salad called the “Vampire Killer” It was delicious!

Other than dinner though v-day went without a fuss. Good times were had by all and now its 10 to 0800 the next day and I’m still full, can feel the garlic infusing my system, and I’m thinking about how I would, in theory, like to eat the chocolates next to me. Good theory, but I think if I tried I might keel over dead, my obituary reading something like “fatty boombalatie ate till he popped”

Ok, off to check some stuff online and then go to work. Fun day ahead!

Posted in Family News | Edit | No Comments »
valentines day is comming
Tuesday, February 13th, 2007

Do you know where your cupids are? I think mine are down at the local bar getting boozed up and hitting on old ladies. Yeah, winged midgets can’t really handle their drink.

This year is proving to be an expensive one. Already I’ve managed to burn through my tax refund, somehow agreed that it would be a good idea to exclusivly handle all of the bills (where previously I just picked up the rent, which is 65% of the total bills) Its ok though. Now I am officially wearing “ALL” of the pants in the house (instead of the one leg and pocket I had before) so that makes Yoshiko feel better I guess.

Work has been going well. We have a new dodgeball program that I am heading up locally. We use the official National Amatuer Dodgeball Association rules and will be playing it just like any other sport. Travel team, practices, uniforms, and everything! It looks like it will be a great time and I think overall we’ll really have a ton of fun. I just hope we can sell the parents (because really, what kid doesnt want to play dodgeball?) Another thing I’m proposing to the boss this morning is a paintball clinic and 1 day tournament to be run on consecutive weekends right before our dodgeball season. This I’m REALLY excited for, I just hope I can sell it to the big cheese.

Speaking of paintball, looks like we’ll be trying to put together a competitive team this year. And by competitive I mean “team that practices every week, including but not limited to drills, fitness, strategy, and general bonding”. If your reading this and interested send me an email. Requirements are that you live in the Yokosuka area and can commit to 16 hours a week of practice. I’m thinking of running this team more like a buisness. Comming up with a marketing plan, goals, and everything. It would be nice to get some kind of sponsorship this year. Who knows though.

I need a team name though... maybe “Yokohama Clarity”

I like that...


the Beave
Thursday, December 21st, 2006

Beavis is back and I’m likely in for a night of trouble :)

The good kind of course. He arrived on the 17th and he is about to swing by with Joe for a night “out”. I’m promised this is just dinner and good old fashioned male bullshitting around but with these guys you never know!

For those not in the “know” the Beave or Beavis is actually Matthew Tio and is one cool cat. Recently enrolled at the University of Hawaii (I couldnt talk him out of it) he is back for the winter break. We plan on going snowboarding and hopefully paintballing. He was a big part of the team and we’ve missed him out on the field. Well, when I can get to the field that is.

I guess I have some time until they get here so I’ll bore you with what went down today..

First, company party. Well, division party. The Youth Sports crew got together and did a potluck with some Secret Santa action. I got 4 packs of monster. Let the fidgeting begin! I got my gift recievee (thats not a word, live with it) a new fossil wallet and a lil nerf football. Who doesnt like nerf footballs? Thats right, satan worshiping communists thats who!

Day went sorta so so from there with me finding out that someone has jabbed my rear tire again. Instead of pissing me off it sort of just made me sad and introspective. I think I know who did it and why... What makes me sad is that someone thinks they are somehow “winning” by doing this and that they are “sticking it to me” Well, my wallet got a good jab. It’ll cost another $100 to replace the tire. But again, im not so much angry as depressed by the whole thing.

But of course Beavis is back and so fun will be had! In fact I think that is his car pulling up so I must bid the 3 people who read this blog a fond farewell.

Posted in Rec News | Edit | No Comments »
December? Not if the weather is an indicator
Wednesday, December 6th, 2006

It is not that cold out. Which is GREAT because last year this time it was freezing. I’m talking shrinkage levels unheard of throughout history! Well maybe not that cold, but enough that jackets and hats were mandatory if you didnt travel by heated horseless carraige.

Some good news on the job front. I’m about 2 weeks away from being out of this place and into that place. Doesn’t sound like a big deal I know but you really need to work here a few days to appreciate the life draining qualities of working with people who hate their job and are not interested in a fun working environment. People that make things harder than they have to be. Drives me nuts and brings me down.

I have lots of great new ideas for when i start working at the other location. Fun afterschool stuff, more variety in sports, and dodgeball! Yes!

I’ve been issued a new MacBook at work and it is awesome! Every detail of the mac is cleverly done and looks great. Applications are integrated so thoroughly its sometimes hard to see where one starts and one ends. I’m a little lost on the way it stores information and programs, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out. Right now im having fun playing with all the little nifty apps and working on pages for work and slide shows and have tons of ideas for video and audio web products for our website.

The most interesting thing about this mac is that you can dual boot to windows! Now there is pretty much no reason NOT to have a mac. Even the price for this highly mobile, slick featured, dual core integrated camrea macbook can be found for under $1000.

Well im outa here. Need to go get something to eat and go to the post office. Tis the season to mail things!


XMAS Wishlists
Friday, November 10th, 2006

In a totally selfish begging attempt I present to everyone my Xmas wishlists. First I have my Amazon list that I update as often as I can with things I’ve bought myself, have decided against, or have decided on. Its divided up but really if your looking to get something for me anything on there is awesome :)

I also have the export from my bookmarks wishlist. This is a bunch of links i’ve been saving of stuff I want/need for my hobbies. If you dont like Amazon then this is the list for you!
Vents Thermal Goggle Lens
Dye C5 Men’s Paintball Elbow Pads

Dye C5 Men’s Paintball Knee Pads
Empire Invert 06 Men’s Paintball Gloves
Evil Tar Men’s Hooded Sweatshirt
Killing Machine BigKiller Men’s Hooded Sweatshirt
Warped Sportz Gangster Men’s Hooded Sweatshirt

Sci-Fi Genre: Modelling Grass
Sci-Fi Genre: Modelling Flock
Sci-Fi Genre: Model Pinning Drill and Refill Kit
Sci-Fi Genre: Tau Empire Codex
Sci-Fi Genre: Tau: Commander Shadowsun
Sci-Fi Genre: Tau: Kroot Shaper
Sci-Fi Genre: Tau: Hammerhead Tank
Sci-Fi Genre: Tau: Pathfinders Shas’ui
Sci-Fi Genre: Tau: Piranha
Sci-Fi Genre: Tau: Sky Ray Missile Defense Gunship
Sci-Fi Genre: Tau: Sniper Drone Team
Sci-Fi Genre: Tau: XV15 Stealth Team Leader
Sci-Fi Genre: Tau: XV8 Crisis Battlesuit
Sci-Fi Genre: Tau: XV88 Broadside Battlesuit
Eclipse Destructor Men’s Paintball Pants
Hybrid Contract Killer Men’s Paintball Pants
Empire Contact SS Men’s Paintball Pants
Dye 2 Pack Beanie - 2 Pack
Bunker King Fade Men’s Beanie
Bunker King Headwrap
Sci-Fi Genre: Green Stuff
Empire Direct Effect 06 Backpack
Empire Unity Body Bag 06 Rolling Duffle Bag
Empire Action Pack 06 3+4 Paintball Harness
Empire Fast Pack 06 5 Pod Paintball Harness

Posted in Family News | Edit | No Comments »
it was a day of birthing...
Friday, November 10th, 2006

Now how is THAT for a title... A bit much? FAH! FAH I SAY!

Now down to buisness. As it were. I have some fresh pics of Mom that she sent me uploaded and ready to rock. You can check em out by following the magic “Family Tree” button on the left. You’ll then need to navigate to Holly to see what you can see.

You may or may not know that it was my birthday on the 7th. I’m 25 and unfazed. Maybe i was excited to turn 18 or 20 (its like turning 21 inthe states) but turning twenty five has underwhelmed me. Now, I did get some “phat loot” if you will. Yoshiko got me an AMAZING new paintball gun, which I dont deserve and couldnt afford for myself under any circumstance. I dont know how I can thank her other than shooting poeple with it so I’m excited for the up and comming December splash tournament. Looks like we’ll have a solid team of vets playing (unlike the noobs I had to coach for last time... NOOOOBS!) Sorry... but yes, I pick us to be winners. Should be entertaining and maybe profitable.

Speaking of profitable. If I dont transfer to Yokosuka (the “other” base) soon I’m going to hit someone. Not hard, but enough to express my frustration. Going to work has become downright hostile (with a smile)

Huh, that was a little rhyme...

I’m excited at what I’ll be able to do once I’m there. Good times abound!

Ate a pizza today. Yep, a pizza. It was terrible, but it was pizza so you know... what else was I supposed to do?

Well thats all for me! Tune in next time when I hopefully have some video footage up and running of my new paintball propeller.


Tau
Monday, October 2nd, 2006

I’ve gotten some pictures of my first 40k army up. You can check out what I’ve done so far here. I’ve actually done a full squad of space marines as well but didn’t take any pics of them yet. Let me know what you think :)

Dragons
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006

No not the winged things that breath fire, but rather my Ikego Housing Girls 9 to 11 soccer team! This season I’m coaching with some dads after work. Its alot of fun and I’m really proud of what the girls have accomplished. Each player has grown by leaps and their level of fitness has gone up dramaticly. Its been alot of fun getting back out on the soccer field and teaching these girls the fundamentals of soccer. Maybe 2 of the 12 have played any kind of serious soccer. If you saw them today though you wouldnt have guessed. Well, maybe guessed, but it would have been a lucky guess :)

If I can get pictures taken of the team then I will. Its a diverse bunch, we have everything from tall skinny girls to athletic small girls. Girls with glasses girls with freckles girls with bony knees. Black girls, phillipino girls, white girls and I dont know girls. To see them all laughing and playing together really makes me think sometimes that everything is going to be ok. Were raising a number of kids who dont see color, who dont fear change, and who can all interact and enjoy themselves with no regard for their differences. Its a beautiful thing, and it makes me eager to add my own to their number.


Dad!
Sunday, August 13th, 2006

Email me please :) I tried to write today but I keep getting a rejected message. I think the email I have is old and since I’ve reinstalled windows I’ve lost all my old email addresses and emails.

Love ya dad!

Posted in Family News | Edit | No Comments »
On the Job front
Sunday, August 13th, 2006

Some news on buisness life. I have recently had my anual performance review and it was pretty good. The big thing to come out of it though is my boss offered me a different job. The work is probably going to be a bit simpler, with less headaches and more regular “work”. The best part is that I will be working directly with my boss. I’m out on a seperate base right now so when something goes wrong my boss hears about it and I look bad, when something goes right nothing happens and my boss can only remember the last thing that went wrong here in Ikego. Though lately people “have” been saying nice things about me so that is a pluss on top of everything else.
But that will change once I get moved into the new office. I’ll be getting work directly from him and I’ll be doing it in front of him. Cool. Oh, and it looks like I’ll get a nice raise and a bonus as well. Even cooler :)

I’ve finally got my 40k army assembled and primed. Now the long hard paint process begins. It’ll take probably months to finish them all but I’m looking forward to it. I’m also starting to make scenery and some other stuff from bits and stuff that would otherwise have gone to the trash. Its looking good on the big 4 x 6 table we made for gaming.


F.E.A.R.
Sunday, July 30th, 2006

I was reading a post from a little while ago where I mentioned the game FEAR. The post was less than enthusiastic, but I’m here to say that that post is WRONG. Fear is hands down the best shooter I’ve ever played. Period.

And speaking of games, I’m playing Oblivion (fun, good, long) and Quake 4 (fun, ok, shortish) now. I’ll try to comment on em when I’m done (or when I’m through in Oblivions case)

Posted in Rec News | Edit | No Comments »
Before July ends...
Sunday, July 30th, 2006

First of all some job news. I’ve been asked to fill a position that was recently opened (the previous person got fired) at work. The position plays directly to what I do best at my job and will really give me the chance to look good with special projects and whatnot. I’m looking forward to it. This comes at the same time as my eval which was pretty decent. Hopefully soon I’ll know for sure but I think I’ll be getting a decent raise and maybe even a cash award :)

My Warhammer 40k Tau Empire army is starting to take shape. I’ve got some troops, a commander, an APC, and lots of cool auxiliary guys. It is going to take forever to paint everything but I’m really enjoying the whole process and I can’t wait to get started playing some games. A friend of mine is building a Choas Space Marine army at the same time so there will be many chances to test things out and battle accross the table.

Just watched the Fantastic Four for the first time. Decent enough movie, but really slow on the action. The effects were cool though. I really liked the amount of carnage The Thing put out.

I beat my friend Josh pretty handidly at Moto GP 06 today! I think this marks a first time victory for me VS him in a racing game.

I did some housework today. Nothing hard core, just cut the grass and vacumed some rooms. Stupid dog hair gets everywhere.

If you are a geek, tech, scientist, Dr., or any other serious minded person I would really recomend the movie “Primer” It is NOT the “feelgood hit of the summer” or anything, and it won’t win a special effects award anytime soon, but the acting is great, the writing fantastic, and the story really messes with your brain. Lots of attention to detail went into the movie and you’ll be scratching your head and asking questions throughout the movie. It never loses you though and just when you think you’ve lost it the movie gives you a little bit more to hook you back.

I’m waiting for the new Terry Goodkind novel to come out. Anyone else? If you havn’t read it, and you like a serious fantasy novel (serious as in not for kids or those with light stomachs) I reccomend “Wizards First Rule” by Mr. Goodkind. You can thank me later.

Posted in Rec News, Work News | Edit | No Comments »
something delicious
Sunday, July 2nd, 2006

I’m drinking a drink I call “ginergy” right now. Basicly you take 1 half liter can of your favorite energy drink, add two shots of gin, serve over ice, and enjoy :)

The nice thing about this drink is you dont get sleepy drunk, you actually get hyper drunk (aka crunk)

What is nice about this is that you remain coherant while enjoying the mind numbing sensations of alchohol.

In other news, I’ve finished upgrading my PC again. This time I’ve gone for dual core processor with 2 gigs of ram. WERD. There isnt a game out there that I cant play with damned nice framerates at very respectable settings. Right now I’m playing FEAR curtesy of a friend. Its a great game but so far I’m a little dissapointed. Its supposed to have this very “creepy” vibe that I think I’m only half getting. Maybe its because I’ve heard so much about it that I’ve spoiled any suprise. I dont know. What I do know though is that it is still a great game. The guns pack a puch, the slo mo is usefull, the bad guys are a delight to kill, and the fat puffs of smoke from my shotgun fill me with joy.

After I finish FEAR i’m going to try oblivion I think. I tried Elder Scrolls III but couldnt get into it. People say IV is better though so I’ll give it a shot.

I cleaned up the house today. Moved a crappy chair out of my office and freed up tons of space. I also moved in a nice bookcase (nice that it holds stuff, it looks like crap) I’m happy with the openess of my office compared to before and it let me move alot of stuff off my already crowded desk.

I’m going to start trying to sell my 133t pc skills by building systems for people. The way I figure it I can build anything the local merchant sells for about 75% the price for parts. Add my modest labor fee and people will save tons of cash and get better systems to boot. I think it’ll be a hit with the family level sailor and if it works out in the local community I’ll expand to other bases. Who knows? This could become my primary source of income if it gets popular enough. Then I can stop trying so damned hard to look good at work. Its taking a toll I tell ya. I’m running out of things my boss will let me work on unsupervised or by myself. Seems he is more into directed work and team efforts lately. Ah well. I did just finish a few projects for him though. My end of year performance report is up. Hopefully its good and I get a decent raise out of it.

Speaking of jobs... I’ve been looking online at usajobs.com and there are lots of electronic technician jobs available. By lots I mean like 5 but still, enough to land me a good chance. They are GS so that means even if I dont know “exactly” whats going on I’ll be given time to figure it out. And when it comes to electronics its only a matter of time and effort for me.

Thats all for now. Back to playing fear. I hope there is like 5 times the game waiting for me. So far its fun, but a bit of a dissapointment.

Brandon out!


posting at lunch
Monday, June 19th, 2006

I’m sitting here listening to a PCGamer Podcast on my PSP and eating french bread pizzas. Life is good.

I’ve started doing pushups at work. The idea is that every time I go and have a Diet Pepsi (greatest carbonated beverage in the non alchoholic beverage library) I knock out as many pushups as I can. So far I’m up to doing a max of 56 at any one attempt, and my maximum done durring the day is 226. For me this is pretty good. Day one I could only do a max of 35 and a total of 120. My arms are pretty much constantly sore, but its a good feeling. Also I notice a bit of a muscle increase. Cool.

I went to the field to hang out with some friends and watch a new team. Its been a while since I’ve done anything paintball and it felt good to get out there. I played one game (well two, but the first I was shot off the break) and did pretty well for being so rusty. I had to use a crazy setup from someone else though which I couldnt figure out how to shoot quickly at all. I still managed to shoot 500 balls in about 2 minutes though :) The key is consistency.

I’ve ordered some new PC stuff. Got myself a pentium dual core, new motherboard, some speedy ram, and a new 250 gig hard drive. All this clocked in at under $500 for basicly a brand new computer. My video card will migrate over but other than that it’ll be all new hardware. I’m making the move mostly to be able to run dual core. I’ve talked about it before, but i’ll mention again that I run two monitors on one PC. The effect on productivity is amazing. I can have many more applications running and visible allowing me to multitask and monitor several things at once. Typically I’ll have World of Warcraft running with email, firefox, media monkey, teamspeak, and maybe a calculator or spreadsheet open. It runs ok, but slowdowns are not uncommon and there is a delay when doing anything processor intensive. Pluss my PC is about 5 years old, its time for something new!

Painting is going slow but well. I’m thinking I may wait until I have the whole squad painted before I take pictures though. So if you were interested in seeing them, sorry, it’ll be a while.

Lunch is over, so I’m out of here. Just a little update on what I’m doing and what’s going on. ENJOY!


Miniatures
Saturday, May 20th, 2006

I’ve started to collect and paint miniatures. Specificly Games Workshop Warhammer 40,000 (or simply 40K) This is part of an effort to have a low cost, high pride, easy to work on hobby. By easy to work on I mean that its simple for me to paint for an hour or two whenever I feel like it at home. If I have less or more time thats fine too. Painting the models themselves is less than simple. I would actually go to say that it is pretty damned hard.

I’ve completed only 3 models so far (each is taking me about 4 hours time total) but I have learned alot and my first few efforts havnt really been that bad. I’ll upload some pictures later but for now just know that for my freshman effort they dont look half bad!

Some background on Warhammer and miniatures in general. Warhammer 40k is an epic sized scifi wargame played by lots of people all over the world. Origionally from Great Britan the game has spread to even Japan. Players collect, paint, and then pitch their miniature tanks, heroes, and monsters on tabletop playing fields in all out battles or carefully constructed scenarios. It has a huge geek factor sure but it really is pretty fun. You have to think quite a bit and miniatures gaming almost mandates you involve yourself with others socially.

So yeah, im a geek, but the painting relaxes me and when I have enough to put together an army I’m sure I’ll have fun challenging others!

Posted in Rec News | Edit | No Comments »
waiting
Monday, May 8th, 2006

So there is a music teacher who occupies a room next to my office who could best be described as “recalcitrant” Go ahead and click the link for a good definition.

So yeah, this guy asks me if I ever waited on Mrs Whoever and I told him that no, I hadn’t. So he asks me if I have ever waited on anyone. I told him maybe twice, because I usually have other stuff I have to do after work and have to leave right away. So this guy starts to tell me that what he means is to wait like a waiter or waitress would in a resteraunt. I told him that I thought it was a rather odd way of putting it and then I got asked “so If I asked you if you ever waited on someone you would say....?” Of course I’ve never been a waiter so I’m pretty sure that no, I havn’t. We have a small discussion about if waiting is applied as a term for only waiters and waitresses, or if it can be used generally in a customer service sense. I was pretty sure it was just for waiters and waitresses (hence it being part of their name) and after this guy left the room I went to dictionary.com and checked it out. Sure enough I was right and decided to share.

Now I know I’m pushing buttons here but I do have an honest need to help people communicate better. It wont do anyone any good if this guy goes around using “wait” incorrectly and having everyone look at him like he is crazy.

So I let him know that yeah, wait is used as a verb when refferencing waiters and waitresses.

The guy starts flipping out, ranting about how he is only trying to help someone and I’m making it difficult and how the issue is the person who is supposed to pay for music lessons blah blah blah. Now I’m having a great time because he is obviously really nervous or insecure about something here and I’m poking whatever it is in the eye at no recourse to myself. It was like watching a Saturday Night Live skit or listening to someone tell a story about a crazy guy who just didnt get it.

Once he got to talking about people he used to work with in the Navy I had to end it though. Nothing is more sad than a guy who retired from the navy with a chip on his shoulder about the whole experience.

I guess as a musician he is honor bound to be crazy. Probably has a crazy quota he has to fill. How do you measure crazy? I bet it’s something stupid like “torkas”. Crazy musicians and artists will sit around and be like “Well Tom I almost missed my torka quota today, but then I realized I hadn’t urinated in public lately.” and of course tom would reply “Oh yeah thats always a way to crank out a few hundred extra torkas. That and talking to inanimate objects about your home loan”

Posted in Rants | Edit | No Comments »
i dont know what he said, but im sure its funny
Monday, May 8th, 2006

This video on google is from some commercial or TV show here in Japan. Normally things aren’t this funny. Picture the commercial ending without the “punchline” and you’ll get an idea of what usually quallifies as humor.

Speaking if funny. George carlin is funny.

Finished a week of LSFM training. Leadership Skills For Managers. I’m not sure why the F got a place in the acronym. Dont they usually leave that sort of thing out? LSM sounds good to me. Anyhow, the class is what it sounds like. 4 Days of learning how to be a better leader on the Job. Learned some things, confirmed some things, and had a good time overall with the class and classmates.

Posted in Rec News, Work News | Edit | No Comments »
some idle thoughts
Monday, May 1st, 2006

I posted this on pacificpaintballer in response to some nonsense going on. I’ll do some copy paste magic here if your interested. Just a little bit of thinking aloud (on the net) on my part...

—————————————-

Here is something interesting about myself I thought I would share as it seems particularly pertinent this time and day.

I hold no grudges. Well maybe thats not quite right. Let me try again.

I hold no lasting grudges. Yeah, thats more like it. Let me elaborate.

There has never been anyone I have encountered or anything that has happened to me that will permanently impact my thoughts or feelings about that person or thing. Essentially I strive to be “easy going” and “forgiving” and I most often “let it go” and I try to do so without any kind of smugness. Well, maybe a little smugness Smile

The reasons for this are simple. You and that thing dont matter that much to me. Really. So if one day you do something shitty to me and I hate you for it but the next time I see you you mumble and appology and the next time I see you you dont do something shitty to me, odds are I’ll be fine around you and wont even mention what happened before. I dont have time to have a list of people I dont like. The effort that would take is staggering.

So what do I get for this relaxed attitude? Well for one I get burned sometimes. Yeah, some people have taken advantage of my simple nature and have used it against me for personal gain or amusement. These people suck, but then again I doubt I’ll be interacting with them all too often once I figure their little game out.

One of the other things I get though is respect. If you appologize or attempt to forgive and forget with someone they will respect that you are not stuck in one mental state and they will respect the sometimes hard choices you make.

The other thing I get is friends. There are a VERY short list of people that will not talk to me, and this is more through their efforts than mine. I know poeple do and say things that they later regret. I do and say things that I regret later. I’m big enough to let it go, and I honestly enjoy having a decent (thats all im going for Smile ) reputation.

What am I trying to say here?

Well, maybe more poeple need to just “let it go” Dont bring it up, move on, move past, find closure, whatever. Forgive and forget, even if the forgiving and forgeting are something you do internally. No one else needs to know.

Because when you dont, your just beating a dead horse. The horse is dead people. Hitting it again wont change anything or make poeple think its more dead.

Thanks for reading.
———————————————

That was it! Carry on!


Japanese 111 midterm
Wednesday, April 26th, 2006

TONIGHT!

Got a study guide and not much work to do today so I hope to get an A on the midterm. The last chapeter was a bit crazy (lots of odd grammar issues) and the counting system is still giving me a headache. I think everything will be fine though. Hopefully I dont get caught with anything last minute here at the office. Monday there was a problem on one of the ballfields and I had to go ghetto rig a pitching machine. Got to class and everyone was taking a quiz! Oh well. I finished the quiz before the last person who started on time so its all good.

I’ve been looking at getting two monitors from Newegg. They are 20.1″ LCDs capable of 1600X1200 resolution. I want them BAD! But the price tag is pretty damned steep.I’ll just have to suffer with my clunky old CRT monitors :(

Speaking of CRTs if your looking for a good cheep 17″ display Newegg has em for only $160 with free shipping! Cant beat that right? I got one for Yoshiko and she is really happy with it. She’s been “hinting” at wanting one for some time now. Glad I could finially get it for her.

Posted in School News | Edit | No Comments »
first quiz
Wednesday, April 19th, 2006

I got an A- on my first japanese quiz. I got a D on my first hiragana quiz. Sigh. I knew the hiragana was going to be trouble. Too bad I couldnt just cheat like everyone else huh? Damned sense of morality and self respect!

Been crazy busy this week. Monday was Training then Class, tuesday training then 3 and 4 year old baseball practice then paintball games, today was training, helping gymnastics class, and then class. Tomorrow will be training then paintball games. Friday will be training then sleep... Saturday looks to be a full day of Baseball and Softball games. I hope everything goes right this weekend. I dont need the extra stress of regular work and the work of dealing with things that go/went wrong.

Next week there is no training but I’ll probably get a million complaints and questions about baseball. I really need to do inventory still. On top of that I am WAY behind on the tripple play program. Need to have some meetings. Looks like I need to clear my plate, I think I took too much!

Posted in School News, Work News | Edit | No Comments »
Problem Solved
Wednesday, April 12th, 2006

Looks like I’ll be playing more paintball :) I just got a side job as a “paintball consultant and facilitator/trainer” working with my old job at my new salary. The contract will be made today sometime and I’ll hopefully sign it this week.

Basicly I’ll be able to work any of my off hours training referees and running tournaments and events for paintball. It will be just enough extra cash to play a few weeks a month and maybe get some of that new gear I was talking about.

Good news for me :) Bad news for the washing machine!

Posted in Work News | Edit | No Comments »
the pbbug
Tuesday, April 11th, 2006

If anyone knows me they know that paintball was a big part of who I was for a long time. For several years I spent countless $$$ on the sport. I had a great time and made a ton of friends and contacts all over the world. Heck I still run Pacific Paintballer. The big problem with paintball is that it does indeed take largs sums of $$$ to play competitivly, moreso here in Japan because of the travel involved.

Several months ago I announced to friends and family that I was done playing competitive paintball. Mostly because I really couldnt afford to anyhow and my job wouldnt allow me to practice when I needed to. But a really large part of that was trying to save money to have a family with Yoshiko. Of course now its spring and the bug has hit me pretty hard. I’m involved with helping the new outdoor woodsball field here in Ikego. My old boss’ boss just gave me a chance for some good money working overtime or under contract to run paintball tournaments for him. And of course I still hang out with friends who paintball, or wish I could hang out with them more.

So whats this all about? Nothing really. Just something I’m trying to work through mentally. Realisticly there is no way I can play anymore at the level I enjoy playing at. What I would really like is to train and coach a competitive team! All the fun, none of the cost :)

Still, I might get some cheap gear for playing the ocasional game. I sold my old stuff in Malaysia (er, I mean, no.... that would be firearms trafficking... something I would never do) to pay for the trip and because I really didnt need that slick piece of hardware if it was just going to sit on the shelf. Paintball guns need to run free in the wild, where they can shoot things.

I’m thinking I might get an ION, a small pack, and some pods. Nothing fancy. Oh, and I REALLY need a new lense for my mask. Mine is all kinds of messed up! We’ll see how much of this recent tax return gets eaten up by buying Yoshiko her anniverssary ring. If there are a few hundred bucks left over I just might get me some gear ;)

Speaking of hobbies. I need to go order some paint and brushes and try my hand at painting small models. Yeah, it sounds like a dork thing to do but I need another creative outlet. I’ve been looking at model painting wargame miniatures and it doesnt look too terrificly hard. 20 bucks in paint and brushes should start me off and let me know if I stink or not. Can’t hurt to try right?

Posted in Rants, Rec News | Edit | No Comments »
my head hurts and its all your fault
Tuesday, April 4th, 2006

Wow, Japanese is hard. Not hard like a brick of Iron, or hard like Vin Diesel, but hard like calculus problems that must be solved in the vacuum of Space...

For starters I’m pretty sure if I ever get tested on my ability to memorize Hiragana characters I’m going to fail fail fail. The sysmbols have no logical pattern or meaning and at best can be described as wierd squigles drawn by inmates of some asylum.

The next difficult part is that it turns out I’m not comfortable speaking Japanese with people who are also learning. Its a bit of a suprise but nonetheless true. If I’m around people that “only” speak Japanese then its no problem for me. I’m not going to use this discomfort as a crutch though. In class I simply took a breath and repeated whatever the Sensei asked me to. Maybe I would be more comfortable if the Korean kid next to me didn’t audibly fart and burp every 5 minutes. I’m not joking :(


Turning Japanese
Thursday, March 30th, 2006

I’m signed up to take Japanese 111 starting monday. It’ll be night classes again like Bio211. I’ve been meaning to take this class for a long time now, but it just hasnt worked out with my schedule until now. Yoshiko is happy that I’m finally taking it.

This class is actually the cheapest I’ve taken so far. The actual registration was about the same but the total for books only came out to $54! Thats half or less than any of my other classes, and its three books!

Baseball season is about to start at work. I’ll be teaching “start smart” which is a program designed to get 3 and 4 year old kids into the learning process of sports. We teach basic fundamentals like catching, throwing, and hitting the ball. Its fun with the kids so long as parents keep up their end of the bargain.

On that note though, its time for bed :) Got a long day ahead of me and a longer weekend.

Posted in School News, Work News | Edit | No Comments »
Happy 5th
Monday, March 27th, 2006

Its my five year anniversary with Yoshiko today! We went out to dinner last night with some friends and had a really nice time in Yokohama. Alot of people have the “oh my god five years!” reaction when I tell them how long I’ve been married but I dont see it as such a big deal. Sure, if we hated each other five years would be difficult and seem like a long time. But hey, were in love and happy with each other so whats the big deal? :)

If you havnt seen it before or want to see it again our wedding album is up on the site under the events section. You can navigate the wedding by clicking different parts of the main picture. Also, some pictures have extra places to click so move that mouse around and see what you can find!

Posted in Family News | Edit | 1 Comment »
The machine that brings you...
Friday, March 24th, 2006

Yoshiko got a really nice new camera and of course I stole it for a second to play with all the fun features. The touch panel is particulary nice. I only took a few pic with it but overall i was very impressed.

I ended up taking somepics of my PC so I could show my geek friends the nice job I did with the cabling in the case. Now, if you didn’t know the cables in your PC do a great job of transfering data, but do a bad job of allowing airflow. It is therfore important to performance and longevity of your parts to keep the cables out of the way so your fans can circulate air where its needed.

If your curious, the case came from the local japanese hardware store. It was pretty cheap and it came with one of the two side fans, in addition to an intake and exhaust fan on the front and back respectivly. I added a few fans as you can see and it came out really cool. The case stays nice and cool and looks good to boot. Here is a list of the other parts and specs...

Pentium 4 2.4g Proccessor.
EVGA Nvidia Gforce 6800GT Video Card
1Gig of Random Ram

I get great framerates in most games. There is nothing I cant play software wise. Performance when multitasking can get a little iffy. Maybe if I didnt try to listen to music, watch a paintball vid, browse 15 different web pages, share files, and play WoW I wouldnt have such problems :)

Posted in Rec News | Edit | No Comments »
Webcomics Pt2
Friday, March 24th, 2006

Here is a nongaming related comic I’ve only recently started reading. This comic initially came out in book form and from what I hear its translation to the web worked really well for them. Girl Genius is a cool story about some girl from a place full of crazy gadgets, monsters, and all kinds of renisance era style. I love the detailed artwork, crazy contraptions, and nutty characters.

The comic is broken down into a beginners and advanced class. What that means is the beginners class is all of the old print material put onto the web. The advanced class is the new “for net” material. I suggest reading the old stuff from start. Like any other long running series you will lose a lot of information and nuance if your not there from the begining.

Check it out at GirlGenius.com!

Posted in Rec News | Edit | No Comments »
Webcomics
Thursday, March 23rd, 2006

I read quite a few webcomics. Most have their roots in gaming and or internet culture (yes, we are a culture, sad as that sounds, but guess what? most people under 30 are gamers to some degree)

So whats so cool about webcomics? Well, for one you get something to read and enjoy just about every day. Of course you can get this from syndicated comics but the difference here is webcomics dont have censors. This makes a MASSIVE impact on what kind of comics you can have.

So instead of boring you with what’s what in the webcomics world I’m just going to go ahead and talk a bout the ones that I love and eventually leave a full list with URLs for you to check out. The first comic is Sluggy Freelance by Pete Abrams.

Sluggy is the most successfull webcomic sofar as I know and has been running for many many years. The storyline has gotten so crazy and complex that you basicly have to read from the beginning (or follow the very helpfull beginners guide links) to make any sense of it. Because as soon as you read about the talking rabbit, the inflatable tech, Oaisis bots, and Zomblebees zombie themed resteraunt you will be hopelessly lost and put off.

Big thanks to Matt for tuning me into this comic btw. It started a daily habit that I’m not ashamed to have.


6 Mar 06 - Just got done taking a test. Dont think I scored much better than an 85%. Eh. The reason I’m taking it now and not last week when I was supposed to is because I was in Atlanta for a Boys and Girls Club of America conference. Were doing some kind of new initiative to keep american kids from being so fat. Sorry if you have any fat kids of your own, but hey, no one likes a fat kid. Well maybe the ones on TV that are funny. But other than that no one likes em. Well.... maybe the ones who fall down alot.

My trip was very uneventfull. I spent a whopping $17 the whole trip. I’m proud of that. Though the Hotel got boring fast I slept alot and ate all the free food I could. Moochi Moochi! Whats awesome is that because of all the sleep I got I had ZERO jet lag when I got back to japan. Nice!

I spent some time on Amazon organizing my wishlist. Lots of fun. Now you can see what I want to buy in clever catagories such as Books, Videos, and New and Untried Books! Exciting I know.



9 Dec 05 (little later): I was messing around with photoshop. I have had complaints that my page didnt have any kind of identifying logo or whatever. My remark was initially SO? But then like I said I started to mess around with photoshop. That thing makes making simple labels fun. All i did was add a little noise and distortion to some basic text and voilla :) Super happy fun time site ID. And a rather clever tagline. See... i was born in 1981. Before the internet. I’ll let you meditate on that a while :)

9 Dec 05: To say that things at work are interesting is an understatement. Firstly, a woman came into the office and basicly acted like a two year old. Only instead of “I’m going to tell Daddy on you if you dont do what I want” it was “I’m going to tell my middle ranked officer spouse on you if you dont do what I want” I tell you what. I dont care who you are married to. Have that person come talk to me. But either way I am not going to do something against the rules at work for you. ESPECIALLY if it has to do with money. I have enough trouble remembering to do DAR’s as is. I dont need this nonesense.

Second thing at work that seems to be a growing concern is how things that go wrong on their own accord, or as the result of others, ends up making me look bad to either customers or my boss. Requisition missing? Well who cares, you should have guessed that and take appropriate action. Didnt get a notice of schedule change? Too bad! Remember that guessing you were supposed to do? Add ESP to that and take the appropriate action. Cant get equipment set up on time or at all dispite a continuing never changing reservation and time? Well hell, dont you have intuitive guesses and ESP and the ability to be in two places at once to make sure things go right no matter where they happen? Of course I do. I just forgot it at home today along with the rest of my ability to put up with this kind of crap any longer.

Sorry to rage on you guys (however many few family members and friends bothering to read this if anyone) but sometimes you just have to let it all out. Used to be people wrote journals. I dont have the handwriting skills for that :) Trying to read it later would be like trying to solve that puzzle from the movie about the crazy mathmatician guy. You know.... whatsitcalled...

In good news, I’ve ressurected an old (and free) hobby of mine! Roleplaying. Well none of that has happend yet but im doing all the prep work for it and I think It’ll be fun for me and whoever else I can convince to play. Nothing like dice and paper to bring back geek nostalgia. I looked through alot of my old source stuff (thanks mom and dad and Oma for buying that stuff for me btw. Know that even still I read it and enjoy it. Money well spent) and discovered that I’m pretty much a World Building Genious (or WBG) and that all my ideas are fantastic. Now if I can just ever finish a damned project instead of moving on to some other thing and starting over when i get the bug again. Ahhh well. At least now that I have a sweet net connection and there is a thing such as Peer to Peer filesharing I never have to spend money on sourcebooks again :)

Monday I have CPR and First Aid training. I like doing this kind of thing. Makes you feel good knowing that in the event of an emergency you’ll know what to do. I still have Wilderness First Aid certification too. If you need to have your leg put into traction after breaking your femur let me know. I can hook you up!

28 Oct 05: More time more update! In case you were wondering I passed speech :) Got a 77% because I didnt do the 10% library and homework assignment. For those of you that know me you arnt suprised im sure but for those that are mystified by the whole 77% when I could have gotten an 87% thing let me fill you in. I hate homework. Not only because it takes up much of my valuable time but because it is usually a cop out for lazy or poor teachers. In every class I have taken that I can remember that mattered I have done well in class and even better on tests. I pay attention, participate, and generally do well. I never study, never do homework, and it works for me. Of course if there is a class where the homework is enough of the points to fail me should I not do them..... well you’ll probably see me stay late after class to do it or show up early. Even then it’ll just be enough to pass.

I was recently in Malaysia again for some paintball and R&R. Yoshiko came with us this time and fun was had by all. The team sucked pretty bad and we won 5 of our 8 games. This wasnt good enough to advance so we just hung out and had a good time. Honestly none of us expected in our hearts to do well. We hadnt practiced, played, or even talked much about paintball since our LAST tournament in may. No practice and no games make Jack a crappy paintballer.

Yoshiko had alot of fun on the trip. We stayed at the 5 star Hilton near Kuala Lumpur where I shelled out the extra $5 to get the NICE rooms :) $55 a night for a 5* hotel is not bad! We did a ton of shopping and went to a deserted beach where thousands of little crabs were going about their buisness. Very nice place with great food and people.

I was reprimanded in writing at work. It seems that I am to write all my emails in a quote “proffesional” manner which actually means “bland and dishonest” I think. Oh well, its not really important and is just a matter of semantics. Boss is monitoring my emails for 30 days to make sure I do good and if nothing else happens of the same sort the file of my counsoling will go in the trash. Its my first negative job feedback ever actually. Kinda strange. I agree with what my boss did even if I dont agree on all the specific points. My bad! Lesson learned.

I’m super excited about the holidays! I havnt had Xmas with my dad and sister in forever and I’m even looking forward to seeing Ruth and CK! Yoshiko is being a little strange about the whole thing but I think its just inlaw anxiety. I’m looking forward to seeing Crystal’s boyfriend as well. I hear he is some kind of mutant german pig farmer or something :) Heheh just kidding. Mom says he is great and as far as I know he is cool.

Thats all for now. I’m gonna try to do more of these long Journal type entries more often. I say that alot but I’ve been thinking of actually keeping an online journal or Blog for a while now and what better place to do it than on my website right?

Oh! Auntie Seney sent me pics of CJ and Kathleen (i’m never sure I’m spelling any of those names right..... except for CJ) Its apparently fall in the states as well as japan :) Pumpkins, Tractors, and Trees! Lots of fun! Cute as always!

13 Aug 05: Long time no update. I know. Sorry. Here is the news. First, I’m taking speach comming up this week. Another one of those classes I need to take to get out of the way so I can concentrate later on the classes I need for the degree I want. Speaking of degree, if you didnt know I want to be a DoD (department of defense) teacher. Its a good trade, I love teaching, and the lifestyle is alright. So to do that I need a general degree in something like education. I hope to teach at the elementary level. The other news is that I have a new job. I am now the Supervisory Specialist for the Youth Sports program in Ikego housing. This is a move up, both in money and responsibility and it will look good on a resume when it comes to applying for teaching jobs. I basicly plan, implement, and supervise all of the sport activites for a base that has over 500 families. Right now its flag football season and we have 5 teams accross the age groups. The job is awesome, I’m even teaching flag football to the 3 and 4 year olds! The only hard part is working with the parents. As you know they are very protective and this group is especially vocal and they know who to complain to. I’ve had a few bumps along the way so far but I’m getting used to the job and think its something I’m going to be good at.

In other news, I’m not going to be playing paintball competitivly anymore. I cant afford it time or money wise any more. Pluss I dont think the sport is going to make it the level it needs to be to let me play for free/cheep any time soon. So I’ll probably just play the occasional games here and there and that will be that. I’m kind of bummed about it but its something I had to make a decision about. I was team captain and I couldnt keep putting in the half assed effort I was.

Oh, for those not in the know, I created www.pacificpaintballer.com for the paintballing community here. Its an active site and we have people from all over the world posting, even some pro players! I still admin the site even though I dont play much anymore. Gotta keep up with the peoples :)

Thats all for now. Gonna go play WoW

18 Dec 04: I’ve recently gone to Malaysia to participate in the First Anual Nations Cup! I had tons of fun and wrote up a big long story about it on the paintball forum. CHECK IT OUT!

14 Oct 04: Pics in from Auntie Senie (im never sure if im spelling that right) Simba is looking awesome dispite his years, and Auntie Cess has DOGS! Whoda thought? Ceck out the new pics under CJ, Kathleen, Serena, Cess, Mike, and Linda. All of them can be found in the family tree.

14 July 04: HELLO! I know its been a while since we did an update but I’ve been crazy busy with my job and moving. Oh! Thats right, I moved! I’m living MUCH closer to where I work and the house is HUGE! Got it for a good deal too. When everything is put away and in some semblance of order I’ll take pics and post them :) Im living in Hiyama city now and its pretty cool. Close to the beach so Yoshiko can go surfing and whatnot. Dogs have lots of yard space, and I can BBQ!!! Nifty huh?

11 June 04: Pics in from the family. Check out CJ and Kathleene having fun in a dune buggy, playing baseball, and just relaxing for the day.

19 April 04: Some news! I start work tomorrow! Nifty! I’ll be working for MWR Yokosuka, outdoor gear branch. Mostly I will be heavily involved with their new paintball program. Sweet.

Also in the news. I had to take down an old web page, www.tamapaintball.com Someone had to give us all a hard time and the end result is I was asked to take it down. Rather than be a jerk about it I went ahead and did the right thing. What does this all mean? I always wanted to do a web page for the whole pacific region, so with my friend Joe we created www.pacificpaintballer.com Check it out! Right now its still sorta in the “beta” phase. Better graphics and whatnot to come.

15 Mar 04: Picture of Yoshiko and her mom. HERE

10 Mar 04: Updated new Tama page and Team 4 page. Both are looking much better (especially the tama one) I really need to learn how to digitally draw... or draw analog style for that matter!

9 Mar 04: Yoshiko wanted me to scan some pics for her, so I decided to put them up on the net as well. There are pics of me, the family, and one of my dogs :) Check em out! My 3rd Birthday, Kane as a Puppy, Photo taken on recruiters assistance to Hawaii, Wedding Kimono Pics, this time yoshiko is in white

19 Jan 04: Well nothing much of an update to give today. I’m learning how to do flash files right now so expect to see some of that soon. I plan on doing the team’s page all in flash sooner or later so check out that link to see what I’m playing around with.

2 Jan 04: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2 Dec 03: Wow, lots going on :) Ok, to start I have a house and a job. I am now a daycare english teacher heheh! I work at a private daycare in the “big” part of the city and teach 1 to 5 year olds english. The job is tons of fun and while I’m not making millions, I’m not starving either.

We have a house. Well a duplex. The neighbors are quite and we probably seem like a bunch of loud heathens but oh well. Its not a huge house but there is suprisingly enough room for all of our crap (if you saw the 4 crates full this would suprise you)

Team 4 (my paintball team if you couldnt remember) didnt do so well this tournament. With two new guys and tons of compitition from outside japan it wasnt a big shocker (hehheh thats a paintball joke, sorry) we didnt win but 10th place wasnt too bad. All in all we had a blast though and met a TON of cool people. Big shout out to Boonie Dogs who we hung out with alot and to all the other guam teams, including Hostile, who took first place. You guys are pimp and welcome in Japan anytime!

News for next year: I’m running a tournament league for paintball. Its a big deal for me and everyone else who plays competitive ball in Japan. More news on that on the forum at www.tamapaintball.com

21 Oct 03: Did some updates throughout the site, mostly background things. Changed and added some of my links. Fixed some other fun stuff as well.

13 Oct 03 - Pics in from Dad. Lots of cool things like pumpkins, tractors, house pics, and more! View pictures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.

7 Oct 03 - Some site changes amongst other things. Little menu reorganization and new domain name for paintball page. www.tamapaintball.com is a site I run in support of the sport of Paintball in Japan.

22 Sep 03 PUPPIES! On this day at 1730 roxy had her last of three puppies. Arn’t they cute?

5 Sep 03 - A friend of mine in High School, Jamie Brooks was kind enough to share some pictures with everyone. Check her out on the friend tree!

8 July 03 - THIS JUST IN, from My dad and Ruth.

Hi everyone,
We took a cruise down here from Wednesday thru Sanday over the 4th of July
to see what the dunes were all about. Camped the whole time in a tent.
Had a blast!! Here are a few pics from there. Check out the contrast of the
Sand Dunes and the mountains right behind them. PIC1 PIC2 PIC3

John & Ruth

1 July 03 - Yoshiko is off shopping in Korea, so I had lots of time to waste today. After cleaning house, reading a novel, watching the simpsons (alot) and generally doing nothing, I made a video of myself playing paintball and put it to music. Neet. Check it out here.

25 Jun 03 - Durring my dredge through every hiring agency known to man, I fill the dead time doing these nifty vids for my team. Check out the ones for Damien and Redd. They are pretty cool :)

22 Jun 03 - Vid clip from the tournament we attended. Its a clip of me diving over a bunker. I say diving, but the action could probably be better described as FLOPPING. Download and view it here.

19 Jun 03 - New Picture of the Week. Also updated CJ, Kathleen, and John Lyons.

6 Jun 03 - Updated POTW with dads retirement pic. Also added to his family tree page. Check it out!

28 May 03 - Tournament event fully written. You can start browsing here. Also there are a ton of pictures that are not thumbnailed that can be accessed from the last page of the write up. These will list all the contents of the pictures folders. It may take a while to view them but its a nice collection of photos.

27 May 03 - Events Section of Website updated with tournament info. Check it out :) It isnt quite finished yet but you can get a look at preperation and day one of the event.

26 May 03 - MY TEAM WON THE SHIZUOKA OPEN! Dispite almost not making finals, and drawing our first finals game, team 4 overcame all and took home the top honors! We won cash, paint, and a whole lot of respect. WORD. I’m going to be making a big web presentation for the whole event.It’ll take a little while but look for it in the comming week.

19 May 03 - Lots of updates done to the teams homepage. Lots of work done to the forum.

3 May 03 - Quick update for the dogs. As the week goes along Yoshiko is having me scan pics of them. So lots of cute dogs to check out under the family tree. Also for a quick peek check out the Picture Of The Week.

13 Apr 03 - New links page is up and running. Lot more links than before, lots of descriptions, lot of time spent doing :) If you have a link to submit or would like to report a link that is not working, click here and let me know. Some interesting news, my paintball team will be playing its first ever tournament on the weekend of May 24th. I’ll be doing alot with that and of course my job search is ongoing. Pluss I am going to be getting my wisdom teeth out right after the tournament. So for a while I am going to be a busy guy. If I dont update the page that often I’m truly sorry. Once things settle down I’ll be much more active in updating the site.

10 Apr 03 - Updated POTW. Check it out here. Its a pic my friend Kanda took of me at the start of a paintball game. Man, do I have good form or what? :)

28 Mar 03 - Some more pictures :) Check out CJ, Kathleen, and Serena in the family tree. Also be sure to check out the POTW.

24 Mar 03 - Man, updates are MUCH easier to do when people send you pics in your email :) BTW im trying to phase out my hotmail account. Please send all email to brandon@brandonbergeron.com from now on. I’ll email everyone with the change. I have much greater control and can keep alot more email in my inbox. Pluss you can send me larger files. Thanks! Oh and check out the POTW. Its of Dad Ruth and CK out in Colorado.

18 Mar 03 - AH HA! You said it would never be done! WELL GUESS AGAIN BUCKO! Heh heh, all this hubub is about a section of my site that has been “under construction” for a considerable amount of time. The Japan Trip event. Click here to go there right now or click on the EVENTS link at left and do it that way. Gotta love options.

16 Mar 03 - Thank you (ARIGATO) to Kanda from www.facelock.org for linking to my webpage. Face Lock is a japanese shop that specialises in paintball and airsoft protective gear and clothing. If you are looking for the PAINTBALL FORUM you can link to it through the TEAM 4 button to the left or by the new button I added up above.

9 Mar 03 - Team “4″ needs to click here or suffer the wrath of tiny pointy sticks. You wouldnt think that was so bad, but they are quite pointy. Most uncomfortable really. Downright anoying at times. Honest. Look its the best I could come up with on short notice. Oh fine, dont click the link. See what I care!

7 Mar 03 - Updated POTW with some pics of the Lyons in the Bahamas.

23 Feb 03 - Updated POTW with a drawing from my cousin CJ. Check it out here, or use the nifty button at left that says POTW.

19 Feb 03 - Do you see what I see? Thats right, shockwave buttons! If you dont know what I’m talking about then you probably need the shockwave plugin installed to your browser. Just head on over to www.shockwave.com and they will get you squared away. In the mean time let me know what you think about the way the new menu feels. Like it? Hate it? Click on the contact button or fire up your web based email to brandon@brandonbergeron.com

17 Feb 03 - Doing some “wierd” stuff with this new web software I have. So if everything screws up... sorry.

28 Dec 02 - Doh! Looks like I should check my work more often. Sorry for the messed up pic, but you can see that now it is quite alright. As a bonus I’ll give you guys a link that I found. rathergood.com I recomend clicking the ‘vikings’ link on the left menu bar. Its good stuff :)

25 Dec 02 - Merry XMAS! Happy Holidays! Best wishes from all of us over here in Japan. We miss everyone and hope that we will see everyone sometime again. Unfortunatly I dont have the video I wanted to post up. After fighting with my FTP software and then my host I found that the video footage I took was too long. So I cut it down and did some editing and whatnot and finally got it down to size. Only problem is that now the video sucks. Plain and simple. So I’m shooting new footage and giving you guys a filler ‘picture’ instead :) I hope you enjoy it, its very recent and has our whole little family here. Again, merry xmas, sorry for the video thing, and we love everyone. Here is the pic :)

13 Dec 02 - Added some pics from the email I have been getting. Check out CJ Kathleen Crystal JohnB Ruth and CK under the family tree to see the pictures. Also updated POTW

18 Nov 02 - Updated Pic of the week. Spending lots of time learning to edit video. So soon I will be able to post those up for everyone :) FUN!

18 Oct 02 - Some of you may know, others may not, but there is a new puppy in the bergeron household :) Everyone please welcome our newest family member Roxy! She is a miniature dachshund just like Kane, but with a much darker coat. Again, welcome Roxy to the Bergeron grandioso familia!

14 Oct 02 - Did some fine tuning on the friends page.

14 Oct 02 - Paintball page has some additions. It is now a full featured product. Only thing I still have to do is the narative. Working on that at work I think.

9 Oct 02 - New POTW up.

9 Oct 02 - New paintball page up and sorta working like I want it too. Consider it a work in progress until I have time to throw something great together.

30 Sep 02 - I HAVE VIDEO! Ok so my dad probably emailed it to everyone already but hey, I can have fun too. This video is of my Dad and Stepbrother in Colorado. Right click here and select ’save as’ from the menu. Or just click on the link without saving. Happy viewing.

29 Sep 02 - Er, wasnt too sure where to put this, but here it is. OREO! CJ and Kathleen’s new cat!

29 Sep 02 - New pic of my cousin Kathleen. View it here.

29 Sep 02 - New pic of my cousin CJ. Check it out here.

29 Sep 02 - Put some pics of my buddy Jeremy up. Check him and his family out here.

29 Sep 02 - Ok starting to put up the pics I have running around. First lets start with a new POTW or Pic Of The Decade as some may like to think of it. Its from a crazy Beer and BBQ I threw a few weekends ago. And yeah, I wont be having friends over ever again probably :) J/K

23 Aug 02 - No news is good news right? Sorry no update. Im a busy guy. Went to summer sonic festival last weekend. Big concert with No Doubt, NOFX, The Offspring. Had a blast. Saw some good japanese bands everyone should check out. Ska Ska Club and the Libertines to name a few. Also I switched to mid shift, so my sleep schedule is all messed up. Working 7-7 is not cool. :( But honest to goodness, one day you’ll check the site and there will be a huge massive time consuming update for everyone to enjoy. Anyone else excited?

15 July 02 - Ok hard drive is back up and kicking ass. Now to get back to being able to FTP and use Dreamweaver. And then rescan alot of pictures into my hard drive. This of course will take forever to do, again. But it will get done eventually :) Honest! Oh and thanks dad for the CD with all the pics on it! Your a lifesaver. Cool case too! And thanks to those who have been sending me emails (OMA!) Like I said before, I lost most of em, so when I do an update only a handfull of everyone who is interested will actually get an update! Dont be left out! Send me an email! either comm_guy_b@hotmail.com or brandon@brandonbergeron.com . Hey! Send em to both!

26 June 02 - My harddrive is dead. Dead as a doornail. This of course is going to slow me down to the point where getting anything done is going to be a pain in the rear. This also means I have lost ALOT of information. In fact I have lost about 1 gig of orrigional and irreplacable information. For those of you who know computers, you know exactly how much that is. Most of it is pictures, and movies. Alot of it is stuff I downloaded a Long time ago and cannot replace. So for now updates and proggress on the page is going to be slow. Very slow. Sorry for anyone who wanted to see the World Cup stuff I have, or the vacation pics, or the baby yoshiko stuff. It will take a long time to get up. But im looking to get a new hard drive, so hopefully things will get fixed. Thanks for understanding... Brandon

14 June 02 - Delay on the baby pics. I spent the last hour doing some maintenece on the html code and file structure of the site. Sorry for the delay, but they should be up within the week. Also, if you could check out the family and friend tree sections for errors. Things like broken links and whatnot. Thanks, brandon.

14 June 02 - Updated pic of the week and Yoshiko has a new section under her page called ‘my baby pics’ that you should check out :-)

10 June 02 - Got pics of my old buddy jeff mathews. Coolness. It was good to hear for jeff and thanks for the pics man. I also talked to robyn chandler and dave hickey recently. Hope to hear from more of you more often. Remember, I dont have everyones email addresses still because... well my computer is just silly sometimes and I lost them all a while ago and I’m still not caught up. So send me an email :)

11 May 02 - Updated the Picture of the Week. Its a pic of my new paintball gun. I sold the other guns I had to pay for it. Its called a Diablo eMatrix or simply the Matrix. Its a very unique gun as far as HOW it shoots. Statisticly its the most accurate paintball gun on earth. Its also going to be my first electropneumatic paintball gun. Im super excited. And when you see it you’ll know that it looks badass. Thats not a sticker either, its actually etched into the body. Awesome.

2 May 02 - Events section online! Wedding section of the events section completed! Go ahead! Check it out!

NOTE: I dont have everyones email address anymore. My computer had to be wiped clean in order to fix a few problems and I forgot to write down all the email addresses I had saved. So If you did get an email refering you to the site please foward it to as many people who you think would be interested as possible. Thanks, brandon.

09 Apr 02 - VACATION IS OVER! For those of you who dont know, I just got married, again, to the same woman. Yeah, ok, it wasnt like we resubmited paperwork or anything, but for our 1 year aniversary (27mar) we decided to have a wedding ceremony. My whole imediate family came, Dad, Mom, Stepparents, sister, and brother. The whole shebang. I’m working on a big new section called EVENTS thats will be up in a few (or less) weeks. This section will have fun things like my wedding, everyones visit, and whatever else i feel like throwing in there. Its not going to be up yet but for a teaser im putting up a new POTW. So check it out!

12 Mar 02 - Updated POTW (picture of the week) and my moms page. 2 pics of here. Now there are only 1 or 2 of you without pics... SEND THEM IN! Also I want to have any pictures of people when they were in highschool (doesnt count if you are no longer in high school. If thats the case I want elementary school pics... or whatever came before) I want to do a ‘when they were young’ type thing... should be cool :-)

06 Mar 02 - Got 32 in DAOC, dont plan on leveling, till i get 7200 RVR points. Did some more updates to paintball page, slowly, its comming together.

02 Mar 02 - Dinged 31, quickest level ever. Doing some paintball page updates as well. Should look up to speed in the next hour or so.

26 Feb 02 - Dinged lvl 30 on Dark Age of Camelot. New stats up no the camelot page :-) Had my firs RVR experience too, was kind of fun. Also added two new screenshots to the page.

16 Feb 02 - Added paintball page. I think it looks kinda cool. What do you think? Email me and let me know. And yes, its not finished. But should be within the week.

7 Feb 02 - Added camelot page, something probably only my friends would be interested in, but I had fun making it. Im at a point where everyone “SHOULD” have at least one pic in their page. I know of 2 exceptions to this. But if your one of those people its because I just dont have any pics of you. Also, at the top of this page you should see a search thingy. It works! Check it out.

29 Jan 02 - Added to Auntie Cess and Mike. Also to Uncle John. Just a few pics, and a new POTW nothing major.

27 Jan 02 - Changed my profile under family tree. Its much more graphical and easy to look at, those numbers are also going to be turned into thumbs. In order to get everything to look a bit better I’m going to have to do a bit of boring maintenance. But if you like the new way to do personal pages let me know. I’ll set yours up :-) Just tell me how you want it to look. Doing a big update today, but it may take a while to actually upload the pics I want to use.

24 Jan 02 - Added content to site. What content, just pics where they needed to be. Also I’m about done sorting pictures on my hard drive. Only have a few hundred left unsorted. Once thats done updates should come more rapidly. Also, I am finding out that i dont have as many pics of some people as I thought I did, so I ask that everyone send me what they have, of themselfs and whatnot, and again, if you have anything else to add to your page (or if you dont have a page yet) contact me with all the goods. My email is comm_guy_b@hotmail.com. And I check it often. Oh, and Im getting married. Again. To the same girl. Details on that later ;-)

12 Jan 02 - Added all content to skyline page, changed pic of week, added to yoshiko’s page, added to my page, added to paintball page

11 Jan 02 - Added new links on the menu bar. Some content added, but not much, hope to get a big addition this weekend (cross my fingers)

7 Jan 02 - Happy new year everyone! With the new year comes a new domain name. Thats right, I bought the name www.brandonbergeron.com for this page, you can access it any time any day, with no pop up adds an lots of extra space for me to grow. Im hard at work (no laughing) getting the pics I have at home organized to include on the page. Its a long task though, but I hope to get it done soon. As always, email me with Ideas and submissions.

21 Dec 01 - Check it out!I have a new look to the page. Was messing around with some imaging software and came up with the little menu and background. Working on changing the Menu some more still. To make it look nice :-)May update some pictures today. Who knows.

20 Dec 01 - The site is live! and the content is being updated. Thanks to everyone who sent in pics and additions and corrections. Keep them comming. One thing people hate is that thing in the top right that pops up all the time. I am going to be moving the site to my own domain soon and so hopefully in the next month or so i will have a new home with no adds, pop ups, or any of that garbage. Im shooting for www.bergeron.net but who knows. As far as updates go i only have time to do Kathy’s page and make a few updates here and there. Will add more as time passes, patience. Oh and look for new decor in a few months also, when i learn some javascript :-)

15 Dec 01 - Added Kane’s page to family tree, changing some minor things here and there.

14 Dec 01 - Added many pics and new POTW. Ready to start sharing site with everyone.

24 Nov 01 - Added Rick Coverdale to the freinds list. He is a guy I know from work. His name links to his own homepage, enter at your own risk :-)

19 Nov 01 - Added my dad and little brother to the family tree. Enjoy!

18 Nov 01 - Did the POTW page (which stands for picture of the week if you didnt know) I’ll try and keep this page updated once a week or so, when i do update it. Also added crystal to the Family Tree.

03 Nov 01 - Added a counter to the menu. Neet huh?

29 Oct 01 - Site bones up. Now for a little content, plan on throwing up some pics, and adding a little comentary. Researching how to do thumbs, so for now please excuse the “big” pictures. Though for all of you on cable modems, this really shouldnt matter :-)